Originally Posted by
GrayAnderson
(1) No, UA3411 didn't have to do with an overbooking scenario, but I think it's fair to say that it has been conflated with such in the public mind.
(2) Moreover, overbooking-related complaints are nothing new.
(3) I doubt it would be WN to introduce it, but what about an airline offering a "guaranteed day only" ticket or something similar? You're guaranteed a seat on a flight on a given day (or within a given time range on a given day) when you book, but you're not told which flight you're assigned to until a certain time before (say, 72 hours out) and you're
#1 for reaccomodation. Basically an advance-purchase variant on a standby ticket. In that scenario, you'd still have the $59 cheapo fare, but you wouldn't know if you were on the 0600 or 0900 flight.
(1) It became conflated in the public mind because the media always always always butchers aviation-related stories, often badly. Recently, they've become fixated on Delta's announcement of a $10,000 VDB cap. Great PR by Delta, and nobody anywhere, ever, is getting $10,000 per person on a one-flight VDB.
(2) Complaints about overbooking are usually less about the concept itself and more about how the pathetically-low regulated IDB payouts enable airlines to make very trivial passes at VDB in some cases. And sadly, the *worst* situations (overnight delays) seem to be where the airlines make the *least* effort to VDB. This, more than anything else, is the lesson from flight 3411. United only made a token offer for VDB and then went straight to summoning the goons to IDB.
(3) Essentially a Priceline-type offering. I've never booked an airline flight through Priceline, but I could see doing this *within* a single airline on routes where there was some degree of predictability for what you'd get. (It'd obviously have to be an extremely low fare - a Spirit-level fare.) Maybe certain transcon routes on Southwest since you know they don't do redeyes?