Originally Posted by
saunders111
A couple of suggestions as to how AA could in principle improve their recovery from irregular operation situations:
1) STOP SELLING NEW TICKETS when they have a backlog of stranded passengers. One could imagine that it would be their highest priority to get their stranded passengers with unbooked tickets to their destinations. Right now, the only way for a passenger with an existing but unbooked ticket to get a seat on a new flight is for that seat to be opened up for sale to any new customer. I would suggest that AA could create a new fare class which is open for rebookings but not for sale at any price, and this fare class would be populated during irregular operations.
2) Increase their overbooking margins during irregular operations. It is my observation that during IRROPS, many more passengers than usual fail to show up for their booked ticket.
Those two items are in conflict with each other. Are you asking for more overbooking? Or less?
Unless things have changed, one of the very first things AA does when weather at a station looks like it's going to be really bad is to run a "change level" program that brings authorization levels down to cabin capacity (no overbooking) on every flight to and from that station, often for the day after the forecast weather event too.
So, while that limits your options to get confirmed on an alternate flight, you can be one of many revenue standbys cleared at the gate when all those no-shows no show.