Originally Posted by
pinniped
This is exactly my thought: I'm surprised an airline hasn't come out and said "Our goal is zero IDB and we think we can get incredibly close with a couple simple features in our app."
that's not a reasonable goal. this idb situation happened because 4 crew showed up last minute in order to preserve the outbound flight at the downline station, not because the airline egregiously oversold and didn't figure it out until everyone was seated. whether ua knew about this hours out and could have avoided it or whether this happened with zero notice (my guess is an obvious communication breakdown between ux and the ua gate agents). also the w+b issues on smaller planes which can cause idb. idbs are a fact of life (at a minuscule amount of total trips taken) unfortunately.
Originally Posted by
pinniped
Interestingly enough, I've received this phone call 4 or 5 times in my life - always from AA. Up to a week in advance of a flight, and *usually* asking me to switch to one flight later at night out of Chicago to either LHR or CDG. Small voucher offer...maybe $200 to bump my itin back by 2 hours. It's clear that they aren't desperate, but at least they recognize an opportunity to shift people around a bit in advance and minimize the need for more expensive VDB/IDB at the gate.
I'm surprised they haven't coded this functionality into their app yet.
this is smart, and i don't think it even requires an algorithm, just the ability in res to sort flights by most oversold, and have an employee whose job is to try to sell oversold pax onto another flight. i'm flexible with my schedules and i'd love to re-arrange, have long layovers, and get paid to do it.