Are airlines hijacking their passengers?

 I had to reschedule my ticket once already this year, and came within a whisker of having to do it again. So, for my next trip, I thought I would look at open-end return or one-way tickets. Open-end returns, I found, have gone the way of the dodo ever since fare deregulation. But what I found out about one-way ticket prices blew my mind!

 In a nutshell, booking a one-way ticket will cost you anywhere from a couple hundred to a couple thousand more than the round-trip economy-class tickets on the exact same flights! I really could not find a reasonable and rational explanation for this anomaly. I would find it reasonable if one-way tickets were more expensive if you bought them each way than a single round-trip, but to charge you substantially more for a one-way ticket than the roundtrip? Pricing different airlines and flights, I found that a $1400 round-trip would change to a $2300 one way on the same flight that the roundtrip was based on, or $4600 if you bought one-way tickets in each direction. Similarly, a $2300 round trip would be a $3400 one-way! A $400 round trip becomes a $610 one-way. The logic completely escapes me. And I know I'm not the only one thinking about this!

 Some people postulate that this is a way to capture high-spending business travellers, who may not be able to pin down a precise travel schedule for one reason or another, or perhaps may be switching travel mode. I cleverly thought, "Then maybe they could buy the round-trip and not use the return leg!", but it turns out that the airlines already thought of this, and have instituted penalty clauses for failure to use a return leg or other activities such as "hidden city" bookings. They even threaten to blacklist you from ever flying with them again. Why, I wonder, would they be upset if you don't use something you've already paid them for? And think of the fuel savings from not having to carry that passenger and his/her baggage! Can you say "unexpected profits"? "Hidden city", I discovered, refers to the use of "legged" schedules, or flights with stopovers or layovers, where one of the intermediate airports is the actual destination of the traveler, using such indirect flights often being substantially cheaper than a direct flight. For example, I once flew from Miami to Newark via Houston, and people sitting next to me had paid more than my roundtrip fare just to travel one-way from Miami to Houston. From that perspective, my Houston-Newark flight was free for me. As the kids like to text, wtf?

 Airlines also have other pricing anomalies which make their arguments of the price of fuel and the weight of baggage appear to be just that much banana oil. For example, it is cheaper to fly from Miami to Anchorage, Alaska, than it is to fly from Miami to Chicago. You can go from La Guardia to Atlanta to Dallas to Jacksonville to Cincinnati to La Guardia(as I did once), cheaper than just going from Newark to Washington DC. And while you sit on that country-hopping flight, the people boarding and de-boarding on any one leg are paying more than you paid for the entire tour! I am baffled! And then they want to hit you with fees for baggage, for food, for pillows and, soon, for being overweight or for not having used the toilet at the airport. If you can fly 50 people 5000 miles for $340 apiece and make a profit, surely you can fly 100 people 2500 miles for $300 and make a profit without the song-and-dance about baggage surcharges? Or making passengers stand for the duration of the flight?

 I've considered other angles, such as discouraging terrorists who don't want/don't need a return ticket, and it doesn't fit that theory either. I don't think they particularly care about being penalized for the unused return leg. It's kind of funny, then, that the TSA scrutinizes one-way tickets with extra care, apparently being blissfully unaware that terrorists are notoriously stingy with their group cash(remember the flophouse in Paterson, NJ that some of the 9/11 terrorists used?), and will not pay for a one-way ticket that is considerably more expensive than a round-trip. I've had one person try to explain that the passenger paying $186 for an indirect flight is subsidizing the passenger paying $375 to fly to the stopover which is half the distance. Huh?? I may not be the sharpest tool in the drawer, but I thought that you would have to pay more than the other guy in order to subsidize his cost. I mean, it's not like the airline is pushing the passenger out the door as they fly over the intermediate airport. They have to land the plane, pay landing and gate fees and possibly take on a fresh crew, food and fuel. So for all intents and purposes, the next leg of the flight must stand on its own economic merits.

 Can anyone possibly find the time to explain this to my satisfaction?

 

The Fear Factor

 Indians live in fear. Like most pervasive conditions, after a while it becomes part of you. You don't notice it, and are taken aback when someone points it out to you. You get defensive, especially if it is pointed out by an "outsider". But it's the truth. Having been here now for several months in a row, I find myself starting to succumb to it, and letting it color my thinking and actions. What are Indians afraid of? Most everything. They are afraid of the police, the bureaucrats, the judges, the errant drivers, people with "connections", the utility employees, the local goons, and even the discourteous people who stick their faces and hands in front of you at a service counter. I think this could also be a part of why Indians are so apathetic to the mess and incompetence around them. They- the not-rich and not-powerful- are too afraid to speak up and, instead, defend their inaction with illogical rationalizations.

 The first thing that the police do is arrest people. It really doesn't matter what the issue is. Somebody complains about something, and the police promptly arrest the subject of the complaint, even if the complainant was at fault. I will recount two particularly egregious examples of mindless police arrests. There was a young lady who applied to a bank for a student loan. Her mother had previously obtained a loan on her behalf, and defaulted. The bank's loan officer reviewed the application and turned it down on the basis of the previous default. The girl then hanged herself, leaving behind a note on the reason for her suicide, which is that without a student loan, her future was bleak. The police promptly arrested the loan officer on a charge of "abetment of suicide", claiming that the suicide note supported the charge. The second example is an incident when a group of goons invaded a farmhouse, and assaulted and molested people there, on the grounds that "immoral and illegal activities" were taking place. When the police arrived, they arrested not the thugs, but the victims, on the thugs' complaint that "immoral and illegal" activities may have taken place. So people are afraid of goons, because the police may not actually protect them, even if by some means they can be persuaded to come to the scene.

 There was an incident when a lawyer, on his way to court, got in a minor traffic incident involving his motorcycle and a judge's car. It so happened that the lawyer had to make an appearance in the same judge's court that day. When he appeared in the courtroom, the judge promptly had him arrested for "contempt of court" and jailed overnight. Apparently what constitutes "contempt of court" is subject to very broad interpretation, unlike freedom of speech. There was another instance in which an Indian litigant filed a complaint in an Indian court against US President George Bush, alleging various misdeeds. The local court issued a summons for the appearance of the US President, and threatened to hold him in contempt of court if he failed to respond or appear. No doubt that caused GWB to quake in his presidential shoes. A proper notion of jurisdiction seems to elude Indian courts.

 The propensity of Indian courts to charge "contempt of court" keeps a public discourse on the effectiveness and appropriateness of the judicial system from taking place in anything more than an indirect manner. Indians are afraid of the long arm of an offended judge. Indeed, this very post refrains from more pointed criticism, because I don't know what might be construed as "contempt". While, technically, Indians have the right to free speech, in practice it is rather limited because of the inappropriate and narrow interpretations of what is protected as free speech. [Update: Noted political cartoonist Aseem Trivedi was arrested and charged with sedition] India has human rights activists, but they focus only on violations by the police, army and politicians which result in injury, and occasionally those involving loss of property, and not on judicial rulings or free speech protections. Moreover, they tend to see only violence as human rights violations, not arbitrary abuses of power or the infringement of rights and due process which also constitute human rights violations. To be fair, perhaps they are also trying to steer clear of that diaphanous line which separates free speech from "contempt of court".


 When one goes to a government office for even routine matters, such as renewing a license, applying for a passport, getting the ubiquitous "clearance certificates", etc., the preferred and acceptable behavior by the applicant is obsequiousness. Because the bureaucrat can delay, deny or defer your application at whim. The preferred action is liberal bribery, to ease the passage of your supplication to the bureaucratic gods. Cross them at your peril, and face their wrath: slow or no response to service complaints, uncredited payments, arbitrary "inspections", demands for obscure documentation to support your application, missing files, and so on. So you routinely see members of the public incongruously grovelling in front of their own public servants, rather than demanding what is their due under the rules and the law. Fear of harassment, arrest, rejection and inconvenience compels them to supplicate the very people appointed to serve them.

 And then there is the ever-present threat of charges and complaints, by anyone who has ever entered your life. Almost every week, I read of at least one case where someone is arrested on a rape charge, because he failed to fulfill an alleged promise of marriage, or merely on the basis of some other non-sexual allegation. Recently, a minor Bollywood actress who had a years-long affair with a married cricket umpire more than twice her age filed rape charges against him when he finally categorically refused to marry her. Fortunately for him, he is not in India at the moment, but has bravely stated that he will be coming to India later this year, whereupon he will no doubt be promptly arrested. You read of people arrested on the complaint that money was borrowed and not repaid, even in the absence of documentary evidence. A model/actress was arrested recently because somebody(from the "Peoples' Power Party") complained that she had modeled a bikini in the colors of the Indian flag. Drivers are arrested when they hit someone who runs out into the middle of a highway(newspaper accounts, of course, always say "hit by a speeding vehicle", doubtless somewhat logical since the vehicle was in motion and therefore "speeding").

 Even cursory initial investigation is not undertaken by the police, who follow the unwritten rule of "arrest first, investigate later". That rule carries a potential benefit to the arresting officers, because often people will have to bribe their way out of their arbitrary arrest. So people walk in fear of someone making up charges, just because they know the police are too incompetent and too corrupt to handle it properly. They walk in fear of their neighbors, because perhaps the neighbors have official "connections" who can make life difficult for them. The saddest part is not that such things happen, but that these incidents elicit so little outrage from the people.

 A free people generally need to be able to voice and express their opinions freely and without fear of retribution. They need to be able to demand and receive from their government the services that their tax monies have paid for, without fear of reprisal. They should be entitled to due process in all situations, freedom from unconstitutional and arbitrary arrest, and fair and speedy justice. They need to be protected from harassment and arrest when they exercise their fundamental rights, and when they have not broken any law. Above all, they need to be free from fear of their own government officials. Are Indians a free people? I'm almost afraid to ask!

Update: Shaheen Dhada was arrested for criticizing on her Facebook status the shutdown("bandh") of Mumbai in the wake of the death of aged Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray, a point of view I strongly support. Her friend Renu Srinivasan was also arrested, for "liking" her status. These "bandhs" are an arbitrary and deliberate violation of the fundamental rights "guaranteed" by the Indian Constitution, a point which seems to have noticeably eluded our esteemed judiciary(and the Indian press and public) over the past six decades.