ahmetdouas

Hi Guys,

If I do not pay to choose my seat and the flight is overbooked (cannot check in online at JMK according to CWS), am I the first to get canned from the plane with an IDB?

Thanks for letting me know.

orbitmic

I think that having bought a seat would indeed protect you, but there will be a lot of people with no seat assigned (only a small proportion of people pay to buy seats, especially on short haul flights) so as long as you go to the airport early to check in you should certainly be ok I should think.

ahmetdouas

I think the JMK-LCY route end of July is full of billionaires with status to be honest! I'm probably one of the few blues! Looks pretty full from now, half the seats are already chosen.
Does anyone know if BA frequently overbook their holiday destination flights? It's the peak weekend of the whole year on the island. I had avios to burn for seats on the way out but I don't have enough to purchase a seat on the return and the Embarer certainly does not have that many seats.

simons1

I wouldn't over think it.....just get to the airport in good time.

In my experience the algorithms are pretty robust and the chances of IDB are small.

corporate-wage-slave

BA don't over sell JMK. In the very rare event it happens, it is from LCY, not JMK.

studio76

From personal experience I disagree with this statement. It's a route I have taken at least every July since it launched, always in club. Club cabin is always many more rows than needed and have always seen the cabin zero'd out on EF days or weeks prior to departure - actually always ends up being a decent club experience as there is plenty of bin space and for those solo J travellers, space to move to their own row. The last three years in a row and ONLY from JMK, I distinctly recall BA offloading Y pax or luggage. 2 summers ago, ALL (as in 100% of the flight) checked baggage was left behind. Last summer 7 Y pax were offloaded. The route is simply at the outer edge of the technical performance for the aircraft given LCY AND JMK runway constraints. If there are any issues (heat, wind, atc, etc) weight is offloaded at JMK. What is true based on every single of my club experiences on this route - BA do not sell the aircraft to 100% capacity (they designate a huge club cabin and don't sell it all) - they know they are at the edge of performance, but any niggle to perfect conditions and all bets are off particularly ex JMK.

ahmetdouas

I'm flying out of LHR so plenty of performance but on the return I am flying back to LCY as it was way cheaper. (they also give you food and drink right?)
The return flight may be on the edge and I am not choosing a seat.

sammyg901

Anyone getting bumped isn't because of an oversale but because of being overweight, they don't sell all 100 seats on the Greek island routes.

My suspicion is a seat reservation is going to make little difference at that point - status, check in time, size of group, volunteers etc will be much more of a deciding factor

If you are worried about it then just buy a seat....gonna be less than the cost of a cocktail at that time of year in any Mykonos bar !!

Globaliser

I asked about this last year, and IIRC the figure that a BA person gave here was that the LCY flights are sold to only about 75% of aircraft capacity because of payload restrictions. So if half the seats have been chosen, that's probably two-thirds of the booked passengers choosing a seat.

If, despite all of this, you still "refuse" to pay for a seat, then you will just have to take the rough with the smooth. If the disadvantages include being left behind, then that may happen. I think that BA seldom IDBs, and 261/2004 includes an obligation to ask for volunteers, but IDB can happen on any airline and there are certainly plenty of anecdotes about various airlines told by people to the effect that having no seat reservation got them IDBd ahead of those with seat reservations.

However, I'm not sure whether the "refusing" in the thread title suggests that you're actually still contemplating paying to do so. If it's causing you enough anxiety to start a new thread about this one flight, then you might find that the seat reservation fee is worth it simply to assuage your fears.

Oxon Flyer

Refusing to Pay for a Seat

Thread title updated to reflect the OPs actual question.

EJetter

Maximum passenger load for Mykonos is 75 outbound and 88 inbound.

Airprox

JMK is ok for OLCI now isn't it? Or is that only for LHR flights?

Tiger_lily

Airprox

JMK has 1300ft more runway than LCY, and does not require an 8.6% climb gradient to 3000ft, so you can bring more peoples

KARFA

LCY has a much shorter runway so in order to put enough fuel in and be able to safely take-off for these longer routes you need to reduce weight in terms of numbers of passengers taken. JMK has a longer runway (extra ~400m) so I guess you can have a higher take off weight and therefore take more passengers coming back.