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According to reports, airlines routinely overbook their flights leading inconvenience to passengers On April 9, a passenger was forcibly removed from a  United Airlines  flight from Chicago O’Hare to Louisville after the carrier was unable to find volunteers to accommodate four of its employees on standby. Dramatic videos of the incident have gone viral on YouTube and social networks, and I reckon the resulting cost of this PR disaster will likely make United’s CEO wish he had sent in a private jet to ferry those employees to Louisville (which the airline could easily have afforded, given its net income of US$2.3 billion in 2016). ALSO READ:  United shares fall after worldwide backlash over dragged passenger Many articles have reported that airlines routinely overbook their flights, and sometimes passengers have to accept (voluntarily or not) the inconvenience of getting to their destination later than planned. As an airline economist, I do not recall, howev...

Plane evacuated at Louisville airport after replaced Samsung phone starts smoking An overheating, smoking   Samsung smartphone   forced the evacuation of a Southwest Airlines jet that was preparing to take off from the Louisville airport. The incident raised fresh trouble for Samsung, which saw its new Galaxy Note 7 device recalled last month because of overheating batteries. Samsung, Southwest and federal aviation-safety officials declined to say what model of Samsung phone was involved, saying they were still investigating. But an Indiana woman, Sarah Green, told The Courier-Journal of Louisville that it was her husband’s   Samsung Galaxy Note 7   that made popping noises and started to smoke after he powered it down while the plane sat at the gate. Green told the newspaper that her husband, Brian, received the Galaxy Note 7 about two weeks ago as a replacement for his recalled phone. He called her from someone else’s phone to tell her what happened. ...