canadiancow

Well then tell me what day you want me to do it.

My point is that GTE means "you will almost certainly make the flight". That's going to be true on any day/flight we look at.

RatherBeInYOW

Fair enough. I don't have the numbers to prove otherwise, just a gut feeling after watching several IDB situations play out with GTE boarding passes in the last few months.

You could very well be right and GTE happens a lot more than I think, and as others point out maybe 99% of GTE passes result in a seat assignment. But I think IDB happens more often than you seem to imply, unless I have just been really (un)lucky in witnessing it a lot although never having it happen to me.

RangerNS

The incidents of GTE being printed on a BP and of IDB are entirely orthogonal concepts.

GTE means that the BP holder has rights to be on that flight. It says nothing about where in the pecking order they are at.

If they did not have rights to the flight, they would not have a BP at all, or one with STBY on it.

canadiancow

Technically "having a confirmed seat assignment" is taken into account for IDB.

But yes, people in this thread seem to equate GTE and SBY.

vernonc

GTE is not equal to standby and is also not equal to 'will be IDB' - on this I agree.
But based on AC tariff, does GTE not mean first to be bumped, followed by low fare non status passengers. I am referring to a regular flight with no IRROPs.
I believe most GTE pax are last to check-in, no status, have not paid for seat selection or IRROP passengers.
On a regular flight, if AC has oversold Y by 10 and everyone shows up for a full flight, which passengers will have GTE and which will most likely be bumped ?

RangerNS

Obviously not as one case of GTE would be a 75k or SE buying a Y fare on a flight when there already is 100% seats having been assigned.

FlyerTalker70

I think you've got this all confused. GTE is short hand for seat to be assigned for at the gate. It means you've got a confirmed ticket, you're on that flight, it's just that the gate agent will be assigning you your seat when you get there. This is often seen when you purchase your ticket at the airport!

How AC determines who to pick off is something completely separate and appears to be a black box. Some have speculated that the following factors determine, generally, whether you get picked off a flight:

1. Status with the airline/alliance (i.e. Golds will be some of the last to be picked off)
2. Fare purchased (someone on a Latitude will be picked off last)
3. When the ticket was purchased (earlier has higher priority)
4. When the passenger checked in (earlier has higher priority)
5. Passenger profile (i.e. if you've been bumped in the past or pulled a Dao then less likely)
6. Whether the passenger has named a price for IDB (i.e. someone asking $75 to be bumped off will likely get the bump first)

Again this is all speculation since no one really knows how the computers calculate IDB. I suspect no one at AC (even the engineers) know for sure!

-James

vernonc

This is a unlikely scenario - 100% seats having been assigned. There would be some passengers with no seat assigned because they have not paid for seat assignment on a full flight so the E75/SE100 may have GTE but likely the FOTSG pax flying on basic fare would also have GTE and will be bumped first.

vernonc

As per my first line, I know GTE does not equal to be being bumped. What I am saying is that you are unlikely to be bumped if you have a seat and most bumped (IDB) passengers will also have GTE on their BP. So on an oversold flight, someone checking in late with a basic fare is very likely to have GTE and be first to be bumped. So on a completely oversold flight, it is these passengers that are sent to the gate without a warning even though there is a chance that they will be bumped. I am not sure warning them will do anything other than induce panic as most GTE passengers will get on the flight.

canadiancow

The tariff spells out all factors that are taken into account.

"based on itinerary" is the interesting one, as they're less likely to want to IDB someone who has a connection (unless there's a reasonable reroute).

RatherBeInYOW

Technically that is true. In reality GTE is mostly (but not entirely, yes I know there are several other factors) given to low-status pax who only check in at the airport, and when the flight is close to full or oversold. Those are low on the pecking order, and are at higher risk of IDB. So while GTE and IDB are orthogonal concepts, in practice there is going to be strong correlation: not all GTE get IDB (of course) but the IDBs are going to largely come from the population holding a GTE boarding pass.

Of course.

RangerNS

Also unclear is if (c) is ordered. If it is, then why isn't it a/b/c/d/e/f..... So I'd suspect not, legally. For sure not in practice. But, to be fair to reality being more important than lawyers, that is down to juggling relative one-off evils.

canopus27

This conversation seems to be devolving into that age-old FT classic "who gets IDB first?", and that's always a fine conversation.

But I'll remind everyone that the thread started with the following CBC story:
And that statement is at best misleading.

Now perhaps the agent in question really didn't understand the process, and (s)he really thought that (s)he was sending hundreds of people a day down to the gate, just to have them all trudge back after being denied boarding ....

But CBC should have done the minimal research necessary to understand the flawed logic. In an ideal world, they could even have taken the opportunity to inform and educate the travelling public about the actual facts .....

{shakes head} Sorry gang, I don't know what came over me there.

FlyerTalker70

Even with the legalese of the tariff there is still plenty of wiggle room and I suspect some of it would be up to the discretion of the gate agent. For instance, the tariff lists undue passenger hardship as being the top priority. What exactly constitutes undue hardship? Is waiting 48 hours to catch the next available flight undue hardship? What about a chemo patient with who has a radiation appointment booked? Would that be undue hardship? I suspect so for both cases! Heck, some on this forum would consider swapping from a 737 to a Q400 being not only undue hardship but cruel and unusual punishment

In the end, all we know is AC has some guidelines, but what guidelines they use to make their decision is more or less the roll of a dice.

You have a very good point here. I would be curious to see how frequently GTE occurs versus actual denied boarding incidents. In the story, AC reports that only 1% of passengers are denied boarding which to me seems like a remarkably low number given how frequently airlines oversell their flights. If anything, I suspect denied boarding is a drop in the ocean compared to IRROPs and the number of angry passengers AC has to deal with on a day to day basis.

The "whistleblower" if anything is the one who is clueless here. If I were working in the check in counter, why would I want to make my life or the passengers life any harder by speculating on things that may or may not happen. Air travel is stressful as it is, why add to that drama. If things go sideways, the best place to handle it is airside at the MLL or (heaven forbid) customer service line.

Safe Travels,

James

expert7700

More likely than you'd think. I was GTE once with my family. All (18) seats were assigned and all passengers had gone to the boarding area by the time we got to the front counter.

We had been hoping some folks would cancel to open up seats but at the last minute we had to buy SE100 guaranteed full Y tickets. (I think require 6hrs notice not 4hrs as noted upthread). Inbound crew then needed to deadhead back unexpectedly, so they ended up needing to bump 2 more pax.

The counter told us we'd be bumped due to the overbooking. Umm, no.