Thursday, March 28, 2019

Moving assets to higher valued uses: airline flight attendants

United Flight Attendants are "renting out their seniority" by bidding for lucrative and fun international trips, and then selling the trip assignments for $200 to more junior flight attendants:
Flight attendants who bid for a trip and are assigned that trip have a property right in the trip. But they’re not supposed to use their seniority to gain desirable trips and then sell those trips, they’re supposed to fly the trips themselves and trade only when scheduling presents a problem. In other words they only get a partial property right and there’s not supposed to be a secondary market.

However, a secondary market may be efficient from the airline's point of view:

From a customer service standpoint I prefer more junior – less jaundiced – crew working the ‘best’ flights and indeed working long haul business class. Assigning customer service duties to an airline’s most profitable customers based primarily on being around the longest makes little sense for a business.
HT:  MarginalRevolution.com

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