Well, that was fun, wasn’t it? That holiday season exodus through Chek Lap Kok. Air travel used to be fun, simple and relatively painless. Now…? Why do airlines continue to enjoy such preferential and protected treatment from governments? I can understand the reasoning a couple of decades back; flying was not the everyday commodity it is now and governments needed to grant airlines favourable conditions. Today with modern planes, airports, the internet and fierce competition, why do airlines still enjoy the ability to screw you in ways that no other business is allowed? I can think of no other product for which the seller is allowed to add an arbitrary amount to the price and call it a fuel surcharge – and we’re not talking small sums, often fuel surcharges and taxes/miscellaneous charges can add 25-30% to the advertised ticket price. Firstly, all taxes should be included in the published cost of a ticket. And no arbitrary fuel surcharges should be allowed! If you are a company capable of buying planes and arranging to get the necessary legal permissions to operate, you are surely capable of managing your fuel inventory.

But surcharges and taxes are just costs, and ultimately you buy the ticket or don’t. What really irritates the hell out of me is airlines continually overselling the number of seats on a flight. On 22 December, my United Airlines flight was oversold, and obviously not just one or two seats. The flight was delayed by over one and a half hours – yes, one and a half hours! It took that long for United Airlines to bribe – and I mean bribe, with bribe’s starting at US$200 and a free upgrade on the following day’s flight – enough people to delay their flight for a day and get off the plane. A wonderful experience, and you can’t do anything about it. If you complain about the wait, the flight crews in this now paranoid world have the power to declare you an unruly passenger and have the police arrest you. Imagine going to the cultural centre for a concert or the cinema and finding your seat has been sold twice or three times over! It just doesn’t happen. There’d be uproar, scuffles, shouting – it would be very messy, especially if it was a daily occurrence. Yet greedy airlines, and in this particular instance United Airlines, oversell every day and then expect to bribe people to make things right. It doesn’t and it isn’t acceptable, yet sadly the chances of our government standing up and looking after the rights of the average Hong Konger in the face of big business is less than zero.

Oh, I almost forgot – from the 340+ passengers your greed kept waiting, thank you so much United Airlines for allowing us to sit in your 747 for an extra one and a half hours. Thank you for ensuring our onward trip arrangements had to be changed. United Airlines will bribe you to get you off the plane but, according to the purser, company policy dictates that inconvenienced passengers receive no compensation unless they specifically ask for it. So pass the message on – if you get inconvenienced for any reason on a flight, make sure you ask for – nay, demand – compensation from the airline!

sd