You're not kidding. If I was still running a boat he would not be allowed on it ever again.
I'd like to see your response if you were about to get on an airplane to fly to a tropical dive destination and the gate agent said "sorry
@Superlyte27 there aren't enough passengers to make it profitable so we canceled the flight. Have a nice day."
Currently my first choice is Pompano Dive Center, I gave them my CC number to book, and I plan to call them outside of the 24 hour cancelation window. If they don't have minimum divers I will cancel and then call SFDHQ with whom I am also booked, but not with a CC, and do the same. Then it's on to Loggerhead in Boynton who said they'd do a wrek trek of my choice, but again only if they meet minimums, and my last call will be to Starfish in Boynton with whom I gave my CC number as well.
I'm not canceling "last minute" and I'm not going to pay an additional $300 for 4 divers for the day, that's a bit much for me. 2 maybe but not 4, if I've got no other alternatives for diving on those days.
It's complete hypocrisy and a double standard as well as bad business for a dive Op to reserve the right to cancel me up until the afternoon of the day before simply to avoid losing money, but not be ok with me canceling them 24 hours before, because they don't have enough divers and/or they have a policy in place that is likely to result in me losing a few dives for which I've traveled over 2000 miles.
There are lots of businesses that stay open on days that are known to be slow, even though they might lose money because they put customer service first, including dive ops in other locations that promise to go with as little as one diver because they figured it out.
At the very least, a dive op who has the policy shouldn't even offer dives on days that they might not be able to deliver on. Easy enough to say "we're not diving that day" rather than "well we might". Or don't do any of those things but expect that phone to be ringing just outside the cancelation window for a status update and a late cancel by a diver who is scrambling to save their hard earned vacation.