Originally Posted by
Mr H
The purpose (supposedly) of the online booking system is to sell pax tickets for air travel on the dates they want to fly. If pax often end up using the system and booking flights on the wrong dates then the system is not delivering what it sets out to do. In most industries, the aim is to achieve customer satisfaction and selling the wrong product seldom achieves that. But in the aviation industry, we seem to have been conditioned to believe that errors are the fault of the passenger and therefore the airline should not try to remedy the situation. Given the known fault that scroll wheels can cause dates, destinations and other data held in drop-down lists to be altered after the customer thinks the data has been set then airlines could take steps to fix the situation. The fact that they don't suggests they prefer to have errors occurring and keep the money.
Interesting argument. I would counter to say that whereas it is possible to put in place many multiple layers of redundant checks, eventually the inconvenience, costs and lost productivity from these layers of redundancies will outweight the potential benefits they might provide.
Would passengers prefer to be asked to re-check their travel dates twice before they can complete a booking? Three times? Four? Eight? Twenty-six?
Would a passenger be willing to pay an extra $X so that the airline can call him on the morning of departure to remind him that he is supposed to fly today?
I would instead venture to say that passengers in some parts of the world are so conditioned in a compensation mentality that they are unwilling to assume responsibility for their own errors.