Originally Posted by
ukdoctor
I don't think that you will ever be able to fly then. EK and all other airlines oversell and offload pax all the time. Having some status with the airline protects against this to a certain extent.
AFAIK EK oversells all cabins except F.
I doubt if I have ever flown as a direct result of someone else not, in the way Emirates' guaranteed seat might work, and certainly not knowingly. (And that's the point: you'd know that Y was full* before invoking the "guaranteed seat".) Nearly all my short haul flights are with easyJet and Ryanair (who, to my knowledge, do not oversell); all my flying on Emirates' is in First.
I cannot stop an airline overselling but it is within my power not to choose to avail myself of the "guaranteed seat" benefit.
Furthermore, I think there is a difference between someone who is denied boarding because he or she has checked in just at the minimum time and someone who is not allowed to fly because I have taken their seat 48 hours before departure.
If, on the other hand, an airline seeks volunteers and offers compensation, there may well be passengers who would jump at the chance. How Emirates' chooses who to offload makes, to me at least, a difference to an evaluation of the "guaranteed seat" benefit.
Lastly, ukdoctor, how would you feel if you were offloaded from First because some government minister or royalty wanted your seat? Would that be okay because it was deemed to be a perk of their status (which is probably how they would see it)?
* As this obviously fails to take into account no-shows, I do accept a Y cabin which is full might nonetheless still depart with empty seats even if one was to take advantage of the seat guarantee. My point would be one cannot know this in advance.