Yep, it's another op-up thread

(For those who aren't aware, an 'op-up' is an operational upgrade - moving an economy passenger to the business class cabin because economy is oversold. These are particularly interesting to DL elite leisure travelers, because we often can't afford or justify the M fares necessary to use a systemwide upgrade, and op-ups are the only other way we have a remote chance at sitting up front.)

I've been hanging around the DL forum for quite some time and am familiar with the past threads on op-ups, but I'm still hazy on two aspects and wanted to raise them for discussion:

1. Does checkin method or time make a difference for an op-up?
   
   I can imagine that if I were a gate agent, I'd be more likely to process an upgrade in advance for someone who had already checked in to register theri intent to show up at the airport. But, in the inverse, I could also see a world where it's easier to upgrade someone who doesn't have a boarding pass yet.
   
   I've personally been op-uped in both situations (once, five minutes before departure at the gate, and once, before I even checked in), so the answer to this question may legitimately be that it doesn't matter at all and that upgrades are processed in priority order no matter what.
   
   If someone happened to ask a gate agent this question during the "walk a mile" event in ATL, it would be really interesting to hear an authoritative answer.
   
   
2. What are the best indicators in advance that a flight is oversold and that an op-up is a possibility?
   
   I've found that neither the availability numbers nor the seat maps are reliable indicators. Take a flight I have coming up, for example - ExpertFlyer shows J0 D0 S0 I0 Y7 B5 M5 H1 Q1 K1 L1 U0 T0, but there are 8 open seats in J and ~20 open seats in Y on the seat map. Who knows which is more accurate and what the true loads on the flight are - two days ago, there was no availability in M or below, and business class availability has fluctuated from 8 to 2 to 0 in a matter of days without the seatmap changing.
   
   I've noticed in the past that seat maps often fill up quickly right before T-24 when checkin opens... but I don't understand why a passenger wouldn't get a seat assignment at time of booking if there are open non-preferred seats on the seat map. Are there other methods of booking tickets that don't result in advance seat assignments?

As to the first question, it doesn't really. In all likelihood, the GA will upgrade Medallions and full fare passengers to make room in coach for oversales. So after they clear the upgrade list, they'll look for the high value passengers.

As to the second question, the seat map is horribly unreliable. Looking at your example, your odds of an op-up are basically zero. Premium cabin (J/D/S/I) is zeroed out in all inventories, so it's full. Looking at the Economy cabin (Y and below), that tells me that there are at least 7 seats available (Y7), but not many more (since B/M are down to 5). I would guess 7-10 seats in coach.

Finally, some people just don't choose a seat assignment, or their online profile says they want an aisle seat and there are none available - so they just end up with nothing. In the end, opting against a seat assignment is a risky game of middle-seat roulette.

Caveat - this is based on my knowledge as an AA employee. DL may handle things differently.

One small note -- IME, if it's Y7, the flight is generally bordering on oversold (if it's international). Just because DL is willing to sell 7 more seats doesn't mean that they have 7 more seats!

I do agree that if it's showing J0, op-ups are unlikely. BE is full.

A good point. Given that BE is down to zero, my guess is that they've taken the oversales down a notch (since there's no room in BE to accomodate them).

Also, thinking about this more if it's close to DOD, it's possible that DL simply zeroed out BE and opened up more Coach inventory on the theory that it is more likely to sell the coach seats than BE (although that's more commonly seen on three-class carriers, closing down F and opening up J so F would only sell to 5 of 15, but J would oversell to 47 of 37 - keeping the number of premium seats constant at 52). Not sure I've seen that as much on two-class service though.

Overall, the moral of the story on OpUps is that planning for them is a sucker bet. Airlines are pretty good at predicting no-shows, so they are pretty rare going from Y to J (more common J to F).

This is an AA/DL difference�AA shows inventory up to 7, but DL shows it up to 9.

In other words a flight with 100 open seats on AA will show Y7, whereas a flight on DL with 100 open seats will show Y9.

In this case, that means that DL is selling exactly 7 seats. On an international flight, I'd be surprised if it wasn't overbooked by a few already.

Just to circle back and close the loop on this - my example flight (which is today) indeed turned out to be mildly oversold as many predicted. The Y seat map is totally full, while the J seat map still has 4 open seats.

As soon as the gate opens, I'll volunteer and find out whether the open J seats result in op-ups or in rebooking+voucher - either would be fine by me, thank you very much - and report back.

Anyway, to answer my original question - the seat map is a very bad indicator, and it's looking increasingly like the availability may not be accurate either (since there appear to still be a couple of J seats that have stayed unassigned throughout despite J0 - perhaps reserved to accomodate oversale passengers).

In retrospect, it's actually pretty obvious this opacity is beneficial to Delta as well, since it helps to mask the true loads of their flights from the friendly revenue management professionals in Chicago, Dallas, and Tempe

As soon as the gate opens, I'll volunteer and find out whether the open J seats result in op-ups or in rebooking+voucher - either would be fine by me, thank you very much - and report back.



How did the bump go?

I don't see why Delta wouldn't just keep both open if there are seats in business class. I mean, if someone is willing to purchase a business class fare and there was a seat available in the cabin, it makes little sense to force them to purchase a coach fare . . .

Flight was extremely oversold, actually; both another FT'er and I were used as a volunteer and rebooked on a later KLM flight to our destination, and it by no means looked like we were the only ones.

Even accounting for us, I'm pretty sure they didn't get enough volunteers and actually had to involuntarily deny boarding to several passengers; I was fortunate that my travel plans were flexible and that I was willing to arrive late at my destination so was happy to help.

The gate agents for that flight deserve a ton of credit for handling the situation professionally; the confluence of issues they had to handle made it look like one of the hardest dispatches I've ever seen for a flight.

Given the loads I posted earlier, I was surprised to see the way the flight actually turned out in the end. Just goes to reinforce that neither seat map nor bucket availability are good indicators of the true nature of a flight's loads.

-Ben

Hey Ben, since you never posted the actual flight nobody could help you on op-up odds in advance, or track the flight loads/lists live. Given that, your goal from the first post was to be bumped up to BizElite (or, one would guess, codeshare equivalent). Did you get that w the KLM flight? Or did you get other compensation to make up for still being in coach? You left us hanging!

According to a few GA's I have talked to in the past, they do not have the leverage to assign you a BE ticket on a partner (KLM, AF) in the event of your original flight being oversold. This was told to me while they were offering $400 for the bump and confirmed BE for the next flight in the morning on a DL flight. Whether this is true or not, I am not sure but I was happy to take the voucher and confirmed BE

Yes I've since learned the same. You need to have a similar class ticket on partner airline to get transferred.

I've gotta disagree that the seat map is COMPLETELY uninformative of op-up probabilities.

The uninteresting cases:
1) Seat maps shows half of Y is empty right before the flight--99.99% no op-up

2) More than a week or 2 out from the flight the seat maps provides little info for you to update your belief about an op-up provided there are many empty seats.

But for the borderline cases at T-24 to check-in
1) Based on a lot of personal data points, I've noticed that an empty Y seat on the seat map in my vicinity remains empty once the doors shut. Particularly for seats reserved for medallion members to select.

2) When the seat maps is completely booked a day or two out, you might have a chance.

dont mean to highjack this but im not a member of expertflyer, can someone check the seat status of 270 this saturday BOS-LHR? unlikely ill get a op-up but who knows

The only time I was able to buy an international ticket and knew at the time of purchase (7 days before departure) that I had a great shot at an op-up was an itinerary in early October, 2009 with the return leg DUB-ATL-DCA. The seat map on delta.com showed no seats available for assignment in Y, with BE wide open; expertflyer.com showed L9. For whatever reason, the DL computer decided to keep selling cheap fares and oversell the flight.

When I got to DUB airport 4 hours before the flight, I got the happy news from the counter agent. Had a great flight too. Thought that pre-clearing immigration in DUB without clearing customs at the same place was a waste of time, since it ended up taking almost an hour in ATL between waiting for bags (our "Priority"-tagged bags came onto the belt last) and standing in the line waiting to see the customs inspector.

As far as who gets an op-up, JFK was (and may still be) notorious for giving op-ups to people without status. I witnessed this on a JFK-LHR flight a couple of years ago; I was on an L fare when I misconnected with the former morning departure; the SC concierge immediately booked me in full J on the evening flight. This was a holiday weekend, and Y was oversold. When I boarded with the BE group, there were maybe 15 of us. At the end of boarding, the rest of the BE seats filled up--there was a family of 6 who ended up in BE, along with a husband and wife who didn't seem to be frequent flyers of any airline, let alone DL (the wife burst into tears when she realized that she wouldn't be seated next to her husband, even though she was in 5B). It was hard to believe that there weren't 15 medallions of any status in Y.