Originally Posted by from Alaska Airlines' website
We sometimes overbook flights because people often book reservations without using them.
This makes me wonder if the incremental gain in revenue is worth the reputational risk, and related fiduciary and customer loss if a situation got out of hand.
Alaska, JetBlue and Virgin America may be better at this than the others, but from a leadership perspective in setting a different tone in the industry, I wonder if they should reconsider this policy. Think that 'sometimes' above sugar coats this a bit, no?
The other piece that is missing in Alaska's statement is if they would place crews above paying passengers. I think it was the former Northwest CEO (I read somewhere and forgot his name) that had a policy that passengers always came first or ahead of crews.
Poor planning = poor performance, and from the paying customer perspective, getting crews to their flights is all in the planning, which is not the customer's responsibility. It's the airline's.