News and notes from around the interweb:
- 12 plane crashes that changed aviation
- The UAE and Bahrain are opening additional air routes for Qatar Airways. The existing blockade likely violates several international air agreements those countries are a party to. Progress… Meanwhile Qatar has opened up visa free travel for citizens of 80 countries, making it cheaper to visit.
- Research finds that “Uber drivers gang up to cause surge pricing”. Of course now that Uber just quotes a price, instead of telling you it’s a surge, complaints about surge pricing have soften substantially.
- Serving vegetarian food only in domestic coach is saving Air India good money. They could save even more if they eliminated meals entirely or went to Buy on Board like the US airlines do. Are US carriers even worse than Air India..?
- Hack that UK folks can use to bypass British Airways credit card surcharges
- Is the Essential Air Service program a boondoggle, or a bipartisan boondoggle?
Aviation blogger Gary Leff said there’s a good chance the White House plan to eliminate the program won’t survive. “Really just goes to show how difficult it is to cut back on even the most obvious cases or programs that are just bad ideas.”
Senator Schumer sees this very differently, not as an example of politicians protecting pork but as a rare case of bipartisanship in Washington and also here in northern New York, where airport funding has support from Republicans and Democrats.
And why shouldn’t they
“Research finds that “Uber drivers gang up to cause surge pricing””
There is information asymmetry in the marketplace. A company has a lot more information about the market than an individual driver. Each individual driver is at a disadvantage.
•Is the Essential Air Service program a boondoggle, or a bipartisan boondoggle?
It’s very easy to spend other peoples money. Thus, a boondoggle.
Uber’s pricing has turned into something akin Amazon-style “dynamic pricing”. I take some routes on a weekly basis, and the price varies without explanation or any kind of “surge” notice. It’s still very affordable, though.
This country is going to subsidy itself to death.
Uber said: “This behaviour is neither widespread or permissible on the Uber app, and we have a number of technical safeguards in place to prevent it from happening.”
Mmmmhhhmmmmmm sure you do. Just like Donny gonna prevent NK from going nuc-u-lar. Oh wait, that happened too. Snap.
I haven’t taken Uber in many months. I’m back to using cabs. Uber lost it’s appeal and advantage.
Uber is a rip off. Its prices are higher than cabs. Uber drivers tend to be unemployed (otherwise). Last time I used Uber the driver lived in his car, and used showers provided at DCA taxi garage.
You don’t know what you are getting with an Uber driver. To each his own.
@steven m: what US president gave NK their nuclear reactors?
that uber “drivers gaming surge” “study” appears to be based on some message board posts that say “hey guys let’d do this”. that’s evidence of intent on some drivers, not that it actually works. i suppose we can go look at some message boards and prove every conspiracy theory known to man..