Bumping priority
 

I'm currently on vacation with my family in the US southwest, due to fly back tomorrow. We're on points. I'm Elite.

Obviously the flight out tomorrow -- presuming it gets here from YYZ -- is now double booked with today's cancelled flight and tomorrow's load. People will be bumped and juggled. We've got confirmed seats, a confirmed reservation. But what happens here? Does AC begin bumping people, and if so, where do Aeroplan travellers stand in priority?

Nothing to worry about if you've got confirmed seats and reservation. In cases like this, travellers that will be bumped will be those without seat assignments.

So the folks on the cancelled flight today have lesser priority for the next flight tomorrow?

And likewise, if our flight doesn't happen tomorrow, then we're dropped somewhere down the priority list?

Which is making me wonder -- if we don't get out tomorrow, we could be here for several more days?

It's beginning to sink in.

I'd think that AC will use fare basis and Aeroplan status to determine bumping order.

Turns out, once your flight is cancelled, you are treated as a revenue passenger from that point on, with status coming into play.

Sorry--I'm not sure I get this. I'm booked on AC161 YYZ-YVR tomorrow, 16 August, confirmed reservation and seat assigned, no status and dirt cheap fare.

Will I be bumped? Do I have any hope of getting to YVR tomorrow? Should I even bother going to the airport? I wasn't planning on calling AC until very early tomorrow am, but the info on this board is probably better!

No. As empress said, if your flight goes, and you have a confirmed reservation, you go. It's the people who lost their seats earlier who have to wait until seats open up.

And why do you supposed it makes sense for AC to bump confirmed passengers in favor of those who didn't get on?

CONFIRMED means confirmed. They will not bump confirmed pax off just to let those stranded on.

RevvedUp - you will have nothing to worry about.

Stranded passengers were once "CONFIRMED" too... but does that mean anything?

When the flight is overbooked for any reason, revenue, mechanical, natural disaster, etc... passengers have to be rebooked.

There is the choice of letting a small group wait for a long time or letting a large group wait for a short time. Obviously, AC chooses the former.

Imagine our healthcare running this way, and your surgery gets cancelled because of the power outage. Now you have to wait for another 8-12 months because there are all these "CONFIRMED" bookings ahead of you.

Would you still think this is the right way to handle things?

Actually, in British Columbia at least, that has been the result for some patients waiting surgery after job action by nurses, for example. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif I don't agree with that, and I wouldn't agree with somebody with a confirmed seat being pulled off a plane in favor of somebody else with higher "status."

Maybe comparing healthcare and transportation is a bit of "apples and oranges." If I buy a ticket for transportation August 15, and the planes aren't flying, should you, who bought a ticket August 16, and he August 17, and she August 18, all have your schedules disrupted.

No matter what system is used, it's never going to be completely fair for everybody.

I empathize with all of the pax currently affected, but it doesn't seem reasonable to blame AC or any other airline for the delays and inconvenience when something of the magnitude of this power outage occurs.




[This message has been edited by Fredd (edited 08-16-2003).]

When a flight is cancelled due to operational issues, passengers on that flight are protected on the next available flights with seats. Under normal circumstances, res agents would be assigned to the process of protecting these passengers on such open flights, and then begin to advise passengers of these arrangements.

With one or two such flights, this process works fine. But when the entire system goes down, and even those previously protected passengers are cancelled a second, or third time, there is no way that any carrier can do this in normal fashion.

When the entire system goes down, and it becomes an issue of handling the bookings of several thousand passengers, how do you expect this to be handled? It is just plain impossible.

AC, and any other carriers only option is to instruct passengers to call the res centre and one-by-one confirm new arrangements. Otherwise, how could the airport staff handle such rebooking without increasing lineups and irritation? And how could AC contact passengers when they are in mid-trip?

So there is nothing unusual with the request that was made. Having passengers contact AC res -- even with the tie ups on phone lines -- is the only practical means of handling the task at hand.

Can anyone here suggest an alternative that is both realistic and resonable?

Joe Clark, quoted in this morning's POST, and waiting in one of those lines at YYZ yesterday trying to get to YYC, said there are likely people who need to get where they are going, and who have been there longer than him. If he didn't get out on his booked flight, he could live with the disruption for a day or two.

No business can handle a total system breakdown of this nature. For people to expect otherwise is Hollywood thinking. It only becomes more difficult when economics dictate that the cost of providing service is not covered by the revenue generated. In AC's case, it has had to trim its costs, and thus staffing, to meet its revenue intake. Obviously, this means reduced expectations on what such pared down staffing can deal with.

This is not an apology for AC. It is facing the reality of the limits of the possible and practical. How many calls can you make in an hour. Now how many calls would it take to rebook 50,000 passengers? You do the math...

AC is already adding extra flights where possible to accomodate those stranded passengers. They have just added YYZ-YVR-YYZ flight tonight with the 744.

Isn't there also some policy where certain travellers have "No bump" status as well?, such as AC pilots deadheading, VIP's, CIP's (Commercially Important Persons), AC executives, Super Elites, MP's/Cabinet Ministers, Prov. Premiers, senior federal officials/Deputy Ministers, federal supreme/superior court judges, etc.?
I suppose transplanted live organs have "no bump" too of course?!

I have seen VIP & CIP, along with the usual *P,*E & *SE on the purser's manifest sheet a few times. It's sometimes posted on the front of the business-class galley wall. Never heard of the other preferred 'no bump' people, but I've definitely read about a few MPs & Senators demanding they get on (and in business class or else)!

[This message has been edited by FMac (edited 08-16-2003).]

I had "VIP - DO NOT DEPLANE" on the top of my paper ticket once, but that was for a pair of N.Am tickets I won (door prize!) at a charity golf thingy in Oakville!!! VIP for a day!