Captain ZZ

In the CoC WN shares that they are "conservative" regarding selling overcapacity which diminishes the frequency of occurrences. I got to experience this first hand last Sunday on MDW-EWR as I noted Saturday night all the flights Sunday were showing sold out. Figuring my flight, the last of the day, might be oversold with the need for volunteers, I inquired at the gate 2 hours before departure and sure enough they were oversold, though just by 2. I was first on the list. (By the way, WN now boards volunteers with everyone else and will pull them off if they need the seat so volunteers aren't stuck in the last available middle seat when the noshows are accounted for.). In any event about 45 minutes before departure, the GA announced the flight as oversold and they took in 5 additional volunteers (don't know if overbooking number had changed or they were humoring people).

Given the ability of WGA passengers to cancel up until the last ten minutes and for AT passengers to just not show, indeed two seats did open up and we flew with all 143 seats taken. My experience with the legacies is when they overbook particularly during peak demand times that it can be by a half dozen or more. So is WN indeed more efficient with its load capacity or is my experience not always indicative of WN's performance as it relates to overcapacity?

smmrfld

I fly weekly, and WN is about the best in the business in this regard. I have the chance to VDB maybe once or twice per year at the most. One area where their IT seems to work well.

joshua362

I have no real idea but I am amazed that every flight I'm on seems booked to the max of 143 but I rarely hear the "looking for volunteers announcement." I may be hyper critical of their seating but I think they have this actuarial thing down pat given how flexible they are regarding cancellations. On the other hand maybe a higher percentage of leisure travelers who book in advance and don't tend to cancel helps?

knope2001

Actually Southwest and AirTran rates of involuntary denied boarding were the worst of all mainline carriers for the first six months of 2013. Southwest had triple the rate of involuntary bumps than American, and close to double that of USAirways and Delta.

Prior to integration AirTran was always at or near the best for no involuntary denied boarding, although AirTran had high *voluntary* deined boarding rates. For example for the first six months of 2011 AirTran's involuntary bump rate was 0.44, compared to 1.59 now.


http://www.dot.gov/sites/dot.dev/fil...ctoberATCR.pdf
(These stats are on page 44)

Involuntary bumps per 10,000 January-June 2013 for mainline carriers
0.01 JetBlue
0.08 Virgin America
0.22 Hawaiian
0.38 Alaska
0.44 American
0.69 USAirways
0.71 Delta
1.11 Frontier
1.17 United
1.36 Southwest
1.59 AirTran

Unfortunately bag mishandle rates have also gone far south as well, in some cases worse than regionals who always have the worse ratios:

August 2013 mishandled bags per 1,000 passengers
1.06 Virgin America
2.00 Jetblue
2.09 Delta
2.19 Frontier
2.21 Hawaiian
2.35 Endeavor (Pinnacle)
2.52 USAirways
2.80 American
3.02 Alaska
3.12 United
3.68 Mesa
3.86 Southwest
4.35 Skywest
4.50 ExpressJet
4.90 AirTran
5.46 Amercian Eagle

In August 2011 AirTran's rate of 1.87 was the best in the business, a spot they often held until recently.


On-time performance has been middle of the pack, but these other two metrics are not exactly something they can be happy about.

djp98374

They allow people to cancel near the last minute, before they didnt have to cancel but still got credit.

I wonder how they classified no shows in the past?

The other thing with southwest is they dont have same day change policy nor the ability to standby for most passengers.


Another factor is Southwest tends to book earlier than other carriers which also would affect the likelihood of them showing up--thus they dont have to deal with as much of a no show effect and thus the need to oversell a flight.

joshua362

So if my math is correct, 10,000 / 143 * 1.36 = 95 flights or a 1.1% chance before someone has to be involuntary kicked off a WN Devolve flight. Even if 2nd from the bottom, I think this is pretty impressive given the lost revenue from a perishable seat (until it happens to you...)

rsteinmetz70112

Remember these numbers are Involuntary Bumps, There are lots more Voluntary bumps and the high number may reflect Southwest's unwillingness to pay enough to get volunteers.

It may in fact often be cheaper for Southwest to bump a WGA passenger than offer more compensation to get volunteers.

InkUnderNails

There is another consideration. Since WN does not interline, they have no way to offload their IDB's to partner airlines with open seats.

Yosef

FL may have been the top in IDB, but they used to offer ALOT in order not to IDB.

I've seen/heard of multiple cases of offering 3 RTs to VDB. Never heard of an offer that sweet with any other airline.

rsteinmetz70112

I'm not sure what Airtran is offering now. I was in ATL Wednesday and a flight at a nearby gate was looking for volunteers, but I never heard the offer. They probably weren't desperate.

On another recent Airtran Flight they were looking for volunteers on the plane. Apparently a flight with connecting passengers came in just in time and they had boarded too many people, Again they didin't announce the offered compensation.