FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - The AC Contract Translated into Plain English

Apr 28, 2013, 10:09 pm

#13

Sopwith

Join Date: Feb 2007

Location: YVR

Programs: Erstwhile Accidental AC E35K

Posts: 2,916

BOARDING (OR NOT)

When you board one of our aircraft you will notice that there are a fixed number of seats. We actually know how many there are because we count them at the beginning of each and every flight. Despite knowing with a great deal of certainty how many seats there are, from time to time we seem to end up with a different number of seats than passengers.

Sometimes it’s more seats than passengers, sometimes it’s less. If it’s more seats, we’re good to go, but that doesn’t happen very often these days. If it’s more passengers than seats, we have a problem because Transport Canada does not allow standing passengers on aircraft. (We’ve talked to them about this silly rule, but they won’t budge.) Fortunately, it is only a problem for us for a short period of time. This is because we deal with it by making our problem somebody else’s problem.

The excess of passengers over seats can happen several ways. The most common is what we call “yield management”. We hate sending out aircraft with empty seats. Empty seats are good for you but not so much for us, so we do our best to minimize these occurrences. We know from experience that despite having bought and paid for a ticket, some of you won’t show up on time for the flight, or at all. (Remember, we can be late, but you can’t.) If you don’t show up on time we may give your seat to someone else who showed up thinking they had a seat but didn’t really. This way we can make sure there are no empty seats, and thereby make ourselves happy (see PREAMBLE).

When we can, we try to make sure someone else really does show to take your seat up by selling more seats than we actually have. To avoid any unnecessary consternation, we normally don’t tell you about this ahead of time. Otherwise, you might rebook on another flight and our yield management goes out the window. We do try to estimate how many no-shows there will be based on past experience, but this is an uncertain science, and we tend to err on the side of maximizing our revenue rather than minimizing your inconvenience.

We can also run out of seats when we need to move crew around to operate other flights in other cities. When this crops up, we are usually in a hurry to get them somewhere where you are also going. Since they matter to us more than you do, they get to go now and you get to go later, generally at some other time of our choosing, not yours.

This seat thing can also happen when a super-status passenger throws their status around. It is a little known paradox that the ones who are a lot more important than you can request and receive a seat on any flight they choose, and we willingly accommodate them because they’re important and you’re not. They can even bring their spouse, child, companion, or significant other. If we have to dump some passenger(s) of lesser status to make room, that’s what we do. So again, because they’re more important than you, they get to go and you don’t, even though you thought you had a ticket. We know how confusing this sounds, so we have provided a convenient link here to our associate, Mr. Seinfeld, who explains more clearly the notion of reservations.

What all this boils down to is that if we don’t have a number of seats equal to or greater than the number of passengers, some of you will get “bumped”, which actually means “dumped”. If you get dumped we will do our best to accommodate you on the next flight. Or the one after that. Or some other flight of our choosing, not yours. But rest assured, we will try to get you to your destination, eventually (see PREAMBLE).

Excepting always, that in the case where you are late and we’re not, you may have another problem, depending on how much you paid for your ticket. If you paid the big bucks for a refundable ticket, and let us know you’re late before you actually were late, you will eventually get a refund. But in most cases you probably have a cheap non-refundable ticket, in which case we sell your seat to someone else and collect twice for the same seat. So in the end, we make sure we get your money one way or another.

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