Originally Posted by CloudsBelow
From the article :
"The number of involuntarily bumped passengers totaled 57 of about 11,100 passengers, he said. He said the most on a single flight was 12 and that happened once. "This isn't an everyday occurrence," spokesman Phil Gee said."
Doesn't that contradict your experience? If his numbers are correct, it's not that big of a deal. If your numbers are right, people would be insane to book w/ US.
Definitely. I laughed out loud when I read that. The pilot announced on my flight that 50 passengers were being re-accommodated on that day alone. The check-in agent said that it had happened almost every day the flight had been running (a little over 2 weeks at that point). The agent also said that reservations had been trying to contact people in advance to reschedule them but that given varying weather conditions they never had much of a feel for what the situation would be on a given day.
I think the line they're drawing here is the number that are "involuntarily bumped," which means they could not or would not accept a re-routing, so their re-accommodation was "involuntary." Those who accept a re-routing when the airline calls them in advance, very likely presented as though they don't really have a choice in the matter given the situation, or at the ticket counter on the day of departure in exchange for some compensation would not be counted in that number. They probably don't even know how many people, in total, have been inconvenienced but clearly it is
way more than 57.