6 responses to “Cranky on the Web (May 17 – 21)”

1. 

   frank

   May 23, 2010 at 6:35 pm

   When you board, mention to the flight attendant that you’re getting married and you might find yourself with an embarrassing PA announcement and a complimentary glass of champagne. If there are empty seats, on rare occasions, you might find yourself bumped up front.
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   Upgrades are something you “purchase” or “earn”. It’s not simply given away. MOST airline employees have to “pay” for upgrades and so should you, married or not.

   Reply
2. 

   Dan

   May 24, 2010 at 8:05 am

   Cranky,

   Do you care to comment on the factual issues surrounding the Mesa/Delta lawsuit? According to Mesa, the lawsuit stems from NYC performance… where Mesa canceled flights at Delta’s request. At first, the judge agreed with Mesa, but now, he changed his mind. What happened? I’m really curious.

   Reply
   1. 

      CF

      May 24, 2010 at 12:28 pm

      It’s a good question. I haven’t read the full decision, but my understanding is that the judge agreed that Delta was somewhat responsible for Mesa not meeting the guarantee, but that didn’t matter. The contract didn’t have any sort of clause stating that would exempt them from meeting the obligations. But like I said, I haven’t read the ruling.

      Reply
      1. 

         Dan

         May 24, 2010 at 2:28 pm

         Could you post the link? I’m not good at finding those things.

         There has to be more to the situation, because if there’s not, then Mesa has some pretty crappy lawyers. There’s a legal doctrine of “estoppel” (wikipedia is your friend here) which basically says you can’t create damages and then claim another party owes you some sort of compensation. (I’m not a lawyer, so if I got the paraphrase wrong, my bad.) So it shouldn’t matter that any sort of associated clause was absent from the contract. And if it does matter, then I say again that Mesa has some pretty crappy lawyers — it is pretty much SOP that the major carrier retains certain rights over parts of the operation, and if the lawyers didn’t protect themselves against that, then shame on them. (Who in their right mind would enter into a contract that permits another party to screw them over?)

         Back to the estoppel thing for a minute, one of the examples wikipedia uses is in a landlord/tenant situation — it says that if, say, a landlord reduces your rent for repairs or whatnot, he can’t then turn around and claim that the tenant is in default for not failing to pay the full rent. Same here — Delta can’t cancel Mesa’s flights and then turn around and say, “oops, yeah, we’re going to hold you in violation of our contract for canceling flights we told you to cancel.”

         Reply
         1. 

            CF

            May 24, 2010 at 3:12 pm

            I don’t have the link, unfortunately. I’m not even sure which court it was being tried in.

            I don’t think estoppel applies in this case. Estoppel effectively prevents you from denying something that is already known as fact. In the case you cite, the landlord reduced the rent for repairs, so he can’t deny that for future rent requests. I don’t see what is being denied in the Mesa case.

            Reply
            1. 

               CF

               May 25, 2010 at 11:59 am

               Ok, got the document. You can click here to download. This ruling is actually fascinating, and I’m going to write a more in-depth post.

               Reply

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