gpicur

I am booked on March 28th on EY231 AUH-ISB. Seatcounter.com shows all zeros and I am led to believe this flight is oversold as are most flights in and out of ISB these days as demand has tripled while supply has been cut substantially due to LH, SQ and BA ceasing operations to Pakistan.

My question is, when Etihad experiences an oversold situation, what do they do ? Do they ask for volunteers to take a later flight in exchange for compensation ? Does anyone know what the compensation is from experience or word of mouth ? What priority will the company use to choose "volunteers" ?

Sam Bee

Can't answer your question, but it's not currently zeroed out in Y. You travelling J?

gpicur

SAM BEE, Thanks for the quick reply. I just double checked both Seatcounter.com and ITN.NET and both show 'zeros' for all classes. I am confirmed in 'W' class which I think is a discounted business class.

Which search engine is showing availability in Y for EY 231 on Mar 28 ??

BTW: Have you ever heard of any VDBs or IDBs at EY and what they give in terms of compensation ??

Sam Bee

Hi Gpicur,

Yeh W is discounted J. Your flight now showing 1 x J & 1 x Y seat.

It implies that the flight is oversold, but not massively so. I've been on a quite a few tight, but not full EY flights so they always seem to be getting their yield management skills pretty tight..

Sorry, maybe someone else can help with the rest.

schley

So what happened?

gpicur

Funny you should ask about the results. The 3/27 flight from ISB-AUH was completely full. There was no announcement about overbooking. A lot of passengers boarded late as the FA's and ground personnel kept checking for open seats and boarding stragglers.

The 3/28 AUH-ISB was a fiasco. There was NEVER a single boarding announcement. THe gate opened late and then suddenly 20 or 30 passengers just got up and rushed the gate. There wasn't even a pre-boarding invitation for Business Class Passengers. Absolutely dreadful. THere was an economy passenger who boarded and found his economy seat occupied. He was ultimately upgraded to Business. I couldn't tell if the flight was oversold as there was never a gate announcement of any kind. The plane left with every seat full...a yield managers dream come true !

schley

That is disappointing as Etihad seemed to me to have it's act together with some semblance of organization. I was pretty happy with them on a DMM-AUH-BKK roundtrip.

trigleek

I have an upcoming EY flight AUH-PER in J next Thursday Jan 21st and it looks overbooked. I tried to select a seat but all the seats are unavailable.
What do you suggest I do? I have no status on EY. Would EY reroute me (AUH-BNE/MEL/SYD-PER) or make me wait a day? I thought they might downgrade me as well but Y is all booked too. Just curious. Thx.

GEB74

Hi - Call them now.
Just make sure you've pre-selected a seat by calling up the reservations centre (they should release one of the standardly blocked seats) AND checked in online ASAP.
Then on the day get to the bag drop desk in good time.
The people that get bounced are those that turn up lateish at the AUH check in desks without having already checked in online.
Particularly in Y, it's a not uncommon sight to see aggravated denied passengers being ushered away to the rebooking desk. Etihad on a number of routes does seem to run things tight on overbooking aggressively.
On the subject of being downgrade to Y, always a possibility.
There were two passengers on my last EY flight earlier this month sat in the first row of economy (seats A and C on A330) being given the FULL business service by J class serving crew / the purser as J was completely full.

trigleek

Thank you! I called them yesterday and today and both times got an agent that told me right now they see 4 blocked seats in J and can't unblock them. They advised me to check-in 24 hours before and to grab one of those 4 blocked seats.
I used expertflyer to see the AUH-PER for the next 3 days (my departure date is this Thursday) and for that flight, EY486, all the letters (business and economy) are zeroed out. Wow! My guess it's definitely overbooked.
I'll call again tomorrow and kindly ask one of the agents to unblock one of the seats. I'll admit I wouldn't mind being rerouted AUH-MEL-PER or AUH-BNE-PER but only if I can get a J seat on both segments and that I arrive in PER by Friday evening.

trigleek

Just a quick update that the flight was indeed full but I was able to check-in with no issues at the airport (I arrived early.) I didn't hear any announcements of anyone volunteering to go on another flight or what not.
One thing that was annoying was how they boarded us on time -- only to tell us the flight is delayed 1 hour due to "air traffic congestion". My friend who was travelling AUH-BNE the day before had the same exact issue!

MacMyDay

Delays are part of Etihad flights. AUH>SIN was delayed by almost 2 hours, but I was much happier being on board than just sat around in their waiting area (the lounge had already told us to go) with no one giving any information. AUH>LHR was also delayed by over an hour and announced only when boarding, but as we were in their First Apartment it's the only time I've ever been happy for a delay.

dee88

Hi!!

This is interesting as I am flying LHR-PER on February 9th
EY12 LHR-AUH
EY486 AUH-PER
I am having a similar issue, for EY12 the whole of business class is showing on the expertflyer seat map as blocked out. When you look at fare availability though it appears to show some seats still available.
(P2 F4 A4 R4 J7 C7 D6 W4 Z3 Y5 B1 H0 K0 M0 Q0 L0 V0 U0 E0 T0)

I am currently booked in an economy seat but just trying to gauge if flight(s) is overbooked etc...gauge possibilities of purchasing upgrades at gate and so on...

trigleek

Hehe. I was in J and was fine. Since it was a full flight, it would have sucked to be in Y for an extra hour though. :/

trigleek

Check the seat map on Etihad as well. On my flight EY486, they took meal orders from the back to the front for business class. I sat in the front and thus didn't get a choice really. By the time the FA got to me, only fish was left... and I thought it was delicious! For those who are picky eaters, order straight away.