Originally Posted by
Herb687
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.
Sorry for not being more clear, and thanks for the response. The first item was referring to NEW tickets; the second was referring to overbooking EXISTING tickets.
The problem with AA's current policy, which you describe above, is that it leads to a nice combination of of planes departing with empty seats and and travelers stranded for longer than they need to. I saw exactly this result this week at DCA, as I described in the OP. By allowing overbooking of existing tickets but not selling new ones, they would clear the backlog as quickly as possible, which in my mind would be an estimable goal. The current policy maximizes their revenue flow (surprise!) while spreading the backlog over the longest possible period of time, thus maximizing AA ticket sales at the expense of maximizing delays for stranded passengers, including AAdvantage elites. I am suggesting that they would keep customers more effectively in the long term by adopting a more customer (and especially elite) friendly policy at the expense of short term revenue. I'm not holding my breath waiting for this to happen...
saunders111
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