American Airlines Testing New Rebooking Feature
Jennifer Billock August 24, 2018
We all know the horror of sitting at the gate for our flight and suddenly hearing, “We’re sorry but this flight is overbooked, and we’re looking for volunteers to take another flight.” American Airlines, though, is working to make this less of an occurrence by preemptively letting passengers know what’s up.
No one ever wants to deal with rebooking their flight. We’ve all got somewhere to go, and we all have a specific time we need to be there. Unfortunately, though, that doesn’t always work out, thanks to overbooked flights and bumped passengers. But American Airlines is looking to take a bit of the panic out of the overbooked flight phenomenon by creating a system that advises travelers of the issue before they even get to the airport.
The new program, called Preremoval Denied Boarding Automation, is currently in beta testing. Once a flight is determined to be overbooked, a notification goes out to passengers via email or text. The message lets passengers know the problem and offers them a chance to rebook right then by calling a dedicated phone line, where the operator helps put them on a new flight and determines the appropriate compensation.
American noted, though, that it already preemptively alerts passengers of an overbooked flight, but the text and email alerts are a new feature.
“If we have an equipment swap that may have less seats on the aircraft, and the flight is leaving greater than 24-hours out, we proactively contact customers to see if they would be willing to take an alternate flight, which may include a more desirable routing along with possible compensation,” an American Airlines spokesperson told Travel + Leisure.
[Photo: Shutterstock]
