Parkland mother gets free chartered jet flight two ways

http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2018/05/01/mom-parkland-shooting-victim-shocked-by-36000-charter-flight-bill-asks-for-compassion.html

I don't know what to think of this. The mother of one of the teachers at Parkland hears her son has died in the shooting and calls a chartered flight service which costs $36,000 for both ways. She gets the bill and freaks out saying that in her case it needs to be free due to what happened after claiming about being shocked at the cost. The commenters said that flight companies have never run on compassion and private planes are insanely pricey. Gambling and taking one, hoping that they will cancel the bill out of compassion is crazy, but since the story hit the news the company let her off donating half the $$$ to a charity to get out of the up and coming public attacks and possible lawsuit. The PR was cheaper.

Who immediately thinks of calling a charter flight, under any circumstances? Charter flights aren't a part of my world, they're for people with lots of $$$.

If I needed to get somewhere quickly, I'd call a regular airline or book through the website. I'd expect to pay a premium for a last-minute flight, maybe $1000 if it normally costs $300. And that's assuming I would book the flight...in the case of someone being dead I don't see what difference it makes to be there, unless it is to support/grieve with someone else.

But that's breeders for you - do what feels right and worry about the consequences later. I would never buy something without inquiring into the cost, if it was a service I hadn't purchased before and it sounded expensive.

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yurble
Who immediately thinks of calling a charter flight, under any circumstances? Charter flights aren't a part of my world, they're for people with lots of $$$.

If I needed to get somewhere quickly, I'd call a regular airline or book through the website. I'd expect to pay a premium for a last-minute flight, maybe $1000 if it normally costs $300. And that's assuming I would book the flight...in the case of someone being dead I don't see what difference it makes to be there, unless it is to support/grieve with someone else.

But that's breeders for you - do what feels right and worry about the consequences later. I would never buy something without inquiring into the cost, if it was a service I hadn't purchased before and it sounded expensive.

I call it tragedy monetization. This is commonplace now in the US, and it's usually the middle and upper classes that do it. I don't participate in the "donor" side of these things, never have, and never will.

On the contrary, people of all ages die violent deaths virtually everyday in Chicago. And if not in Chicago, you'll easily find one in Detroit, Oakland, LA, or Baltimore. But these victims are often poor blacks... sometimes poor whites, too. There's not hundreds of thousands being raised on "GoFundMe" for these victims. Nor are their magnetic ribbons on cars recognizing their loss. Nor are there telethons, demands for workplace charities, or teenager "experts" on gun violence showing up on the 6 O'Clock news. There loss is just as tragic, but not as recognizable insofar as this kind of violence is predictable in those places.

I'd like to think of myself as rational, logical, and yes--charitable! But I was called callous, shallow, and mean spirited when I refused to donate to the Sandy Hook families after the tragic events which happened there some years back. I simply asked the question, "Why would well-to-do and wealthy New England families need money from a 9-5 working stiff apartment dweller?!?" I understand the concept of funeral expenses, etc., but once those are covered, that's pretty much it for a non-breadwinner of a family. Money isn't going to be helpful in these situations.

For this person to expect a chartered aircraft is rather disgusting to say the least. Having a loved one perish is truly awful but all of us face those realities and we do so without Delta providing us a 747 to use for the day.

Events such as these will try people's patience, especially when it comes to charitable giving. My nickel's worth of free advice is to give generously, but give LOCALLY. Your local food pantry needs food and a helping hand. Your local Lions club needs eyeglasses. Your local Kiwanians or Rotarians can always use your support with their service projects. Sending big checks (minus heavy administrative fees) to wealthy families 1000s of miles away is a waste of your resources and is taking away from people who have a genuine need.

What's the downside to the charter company to say they are not forgiving the bill? Chances are, they are not a publicly traded company that has to answer to stockholders or deal with customer boycotts from people who book flights based on price alone. They are a niche service that caters to high end clients.

Edit: the article mentioned this woman did first try to fly commercial, but there were no available flights. Even so, Talon Air is a for profit business, and it's unfair to expect a business you have no relationship with (because if she did, she'd have some idea of the cost) to donate $36K to a total stranger just because.

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Tiquer
What's the downside to the charter company to say they are not forgiving the bill? Chances are, they are not a publicly traded company that has to answer to stockholders or deal with customer boycotts from people who book flights based on price alone. They are a niche service that caters to high end clients.

She's never going to be a client, and the people who are their clients probably don't give a fuck about her. I would not have forgiven the debt.

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Tiquer
Edit: the article mentioned this woman did first try to fly commercial, but there were no available flights. Even so, Talon Air is a for profit business, and it's unfair to expect a business you have no relationship with (because if she did, she'd have some idea of the cost) to donate $36K to a total stranger just because.

No available flights today, tomorrow, the day after, or any day that week? No flights even taking a roundabout route with a few stopovers? Then hop on a bus or a train, or drive, if you need to be there. Or drive to an airport a few hours away and catch a flight from there. Or go to the airport and hope for a no-show. I can't believe there were absolutely no alternatives other than a charter plane.

I find this really hard to believe that this woman couldn't find something. Airlines are really good about asking if anyone would be willing to take a voucher for a later flight in cases of emergencies like this. They love the PR and considering what happened, I'm sure that this is what would have happened. I looked up where Islip is in New York.....New Jersey isn't that far and neither is Maryland. There is no way in Hell she wouldn't have been able to find a flight out.

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"It is better not to look like what you are; it is better to look like a bourgeois woman because then all the doors are open for you and then you can just go and make hell." - Marjane Satrapi

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addiea raine
I find this really hard to believe that this woman couldn't find something. Airlines are really good about asking if anyone would be willing to take a voucher for a later flight in cases of emergencies like this. They love the PR and considering what happened, I'm sure that this is what would have happened. I looked up where Islip is in New York.....New Jersey isn't that far and neither is Maryland. There is no way in Hell she wouldn't have been able to find a flight out.

I agree with you 100%. But let's assume that we're both wrong and no commercial flights were available anywhere within a 500 mile radius.

She has no right to demand a charter flight or ANYTHING else, regardless of her circumstances. We're talking about $36,000 worth of labor/services here. And she thinks the charter air company should be picking up the tab on that. It's outrageous.

My patience with the Parkland victims is officially gone. It's a tragedy. It's terrible. I wish it never had happened. But this small business does not owe anyone passage to Florida. And no American owes any of these people money or anything else.

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But I was called callous, shallow, and mean spirited when I refused to donate to the Sandy Hook families after the tragic events which happened there some years back. I simply asked the question, "Why would well-to-do and wealthy New England families need money from a 9-5 working stiff apartment dweller?!?" I understand the concept of funeral expenses, etc., but once those are covered, that's pretty much it for a non-breadwinner of a family. Money isn't going to be helpful in these situations.

It's an unpopular opinion, but I essentially said the same thing about the WTC widows and widowers. I feel the same way about most GoFundMes.

My otherwise-healthy father dropped dead of an aneurysm at age 35. Somebody has to be the 2%. Terrorists attacks are not the norm, but somebody is killed when they happen. Life insurance is for tragedies and dawg knows most of the people in those towers were working jobs where they could well afford it. Certainly if you are making large and living large, it's your responsibility to plan for your untimely demise and make sure your family is taken care of, not the Government's.

It was not the government's place to use taxpayer money to pay these people. I know the standard explanation was, this was necessary because the airlines would have been bankrupted by the settlements. They should have crossed that bridge at that time.

If a decision was made to pay people, then everyone should have received the same amount, from a restaurant worker to an investment banker. A life is a life. It became a slippery slope with the relatives of the deceased demanding to be paid more when the deceased made more money to compensate for their financial loss. (They got it.) Pretty distasteful all around.

Unintended legal messes from the fallout:

widow fights to keep settlement

widow blows through 4.7 million dollars

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bell_flower
It was not the government's place to use taxpayer money to pay these people. I know the standard explanation was, this was necessary because the airlines would have been bankrupted by the settlements. They should have crossed that bridge at that time.

If a decision was made to pay people, then everyone should have received the same amount, from a restaurant worker to an investment banker. A life is a life. It became a slippery slope with the relatives of the deceased demanding to be paid more when the deceased made more money to compensate for their financial loss. (They got it.) Pretty distasteful all around.

I agree with you, that if there is a settlement, it should be the same for everyone. However in such a situation, the airlines, or their insurers, would normally have been liable. Payments for accidental death are supposed to compensate for the loss of life, not for the loss of earning power - that is what life insurance is for. If I were ever in a situation where someone else relied on my income, I would get life and disability insurance.

Meanwhile, hasn't the government been dragging its heels when it comes to paying for the illnesses of the emergency services for the crud they inhaled? That I do think is their responsibility, just as it is their responsibility to pay for veteran's care. If a person loses quality of life due to work, and that work is in public service or for the government, the government should compensate. We'd expect a company to pay if the worker is injured in a warehouse, how is this different?

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yurble
If a person loses quality of life due to work, and that work is in public service or for the government, the government should compensate. We'd expect a company to pay if the worker is injured in a warehouse, how is this different?

To my thinking, it's not.

But there's more to the story. Workers comp varies by state, with red states being much more stingy than blue ones when it comes to payouts. To complicate things even further, the same injury occuring in different years in the same state will have different payouts. Basically, policies will pay a percentage of your wages, usually 2/3, until you reach maximum medical improvement. Sometimes this is full recovery, but other times not, as in a case where you lose range of motion, or might be unable to return to your job, or become fully disabled and unable to work at any job. There are then comp hearings where there is a final award/payout calculated based on all of these factors, taking into account any prior payouts for medical care and lost wages. The process is pretty straightforward when a worker has an injury with a full recovery, but much less so when it is a life-changing event. Some states allow for caps on payouts, even for workplace fatalities. It's a crazy and fundamentally unfair system.

So it does make sense for the government to step in and level the field, so you don't have FDNY responders receiving different benefits than a Texas firefighter who traveled to NYC and inhaled the same carcinogens at Ground Zero. But the insurance people know these medical issues will be fantastically expensive, so the longer they stall, the more people die, and the fewer bills they have to pay, so stall they will.