A Complete and Utter Lack of Logic

Ah, stupidity and illogic. Two things that can drive sane people crazy; two things that there is no shortage of in the world. One needs simply hop a flight to anywhere to see stupidity in action…

A few weeks ago I had a multi-destination trip planned, and I booked a reservation that would fly me from city to city. One of the legs was Vegas to Phoenix (from The Speaking School to the NSA Fall conference). This is very short 45 minute flight.

My friend and Speaking School partner, Fred Gleeck, had decided to drive from Vegas to Phoenix for the same conference at the same time. I thought, “hey, this is cool. I’ll just drive with Fred so we’ll both have company and I don’t need to deal with flying.” Besides, once you factor in getting dropped off early, dealing with boarding and de-boarding, and arranging for transport from the Phoenix airport to the hotel, driving ends up taking not much more time at all.

I call the airline to let them know of my change in plans. I quite honestly thought I was doing them a favor; I wanted to let them know they could sell my seat or give it away to a standby passenger.

Those of you who fly a lot can see where this is going. I fly a decent amount, but I have never tried to do this before…

I was told that basically, I couldn’t just skip out on that that leg of the trip, and that I had three options:

1. I could cancel, which they would count as a “change.” Ergo, they would charge me a change fee of $150.
2. I could just not show up for the flight. Of course if I did that, the system would automatically cancel the rest of my reservation. I would lose my upcoming flights from Phoenix to LA and LA back to Philly.
3. I could take the flight as originally planned.

Since I didn’t want to pay $150 extra, and since I did actually want to continue on to LA and then back to Philly, I had no choice but to take the flight and let Fred drive off on his own.

What. The. Heck?

This bothered me quite a bit, mostly because it is a policy that defies all logic…

(Note: I realize the futility in expecting any logic at all in airline policies, but I am doing it anyway!)

My semi-intelligent brain processed things as so:

• I had already paid for the ticker
• I was not asking for a refund. The money was gone, and I accepted that
• Whether I made the flight or not, the airline was making the exact same amount of money
• If I didn’t make it, and let them know, they could offer my seat to another passenger or to a standby passenger. In this case, they would either make more money or make a waiting customer happy.
• By doing this, everyone wins!
• Even if no one took my seat, it still works out. The airlines have been bitching for a while about the high cost of jet fuel and how much additional weight costs them in fuel consumption. This is one of their (slim) justifications for charging bag fees. Well, if each bag of up to 50 pounds costs $50, me not showing up saves you between $150 and $200…

But nope, that’s not how the airline sees it.

I can understand them canceling a reservation or charging a fee for a complete no-show. And I can understand the “change-fee” (even if I don’t like it) when you actually try to change your reservation. But to screw someone over for simply not using something they bought and paid for just seems like total dumbassery.

Imagine if you bought season tickets to a sporting event or theater company but then had to miss one of the shows. When you call to let them know that they can sell your seat to a waiting list person if they want, they say, “oh no no no. Either you pay us a fee for missing this show, or we will cancel the rest of your season tickets!”

Would you put up with that? I think not! Yet this is how the airline’s policy works.

What’s funny (and sad) about this story is that when I relayed it to some of my “traveling road warrior” friends, they all immediately said, “oh, yeah, the airlines won’t let you do that,” as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Ridiculous policies have been so ubiquitous that no one bats an eye anymore.

So what can you takeaway? Am I saying we should all stop flying? No. Am I saying that we should all petition and argue against the airlines. No, that would be like banging your head against the wall.

Airlines can do this because:

• They have always had annoying policies
• They all do similar things (for the most part)
• There are few good alternatives to flying

You and I, on the other hand, don’t have the luxury of illogical policies designed solely to benefit us while screwing others.

If you are an entrepreneur or own a small business, do your policies make sense? Not to you, but to the average customer? If you run a department or division in your company, are your guidelines for employee behavior preposterous or easy to understand? If you are on the board of an association, do your procedures reflect common sense? In your personal life, do the rules you have laid down make logical sense?

If you look through these areas of your life and find stupidity, hypocrisy, or a lack of logic (from other people’s perspective, not just yours), you should really consider changing them. Airlines and giant corporations can get away with convoluted policies and procedures; the rest of us actually have to make sense in what we do…