Love_Travel

This morning the GA offered $1500 for volunteering to go on the next flight. ATL-DFW. They were looking for 10 passengers. I saw at least 4 took the deal

Why would Delta overbook 10 passengers?

davetravels

Flights can often be overbooked by 10 or more people. The trick is for Delta to know their customers well enough that when the plane goes out, everybody gets on, due to no shows.

But things can happen that are out of an airline's control . . . .

1) I was flying ATL/MSP on a NW DC-9, once, and the GA was looking for 17 volunteers. There were suddenly storms enroute, and the plane had to take on a lot of extra fuel in case of a diversion. So, they needed to bump some people off due to the weight of the fuel (so I was told).

2) I was flying JFK/MSP on a RJ once, and they needed 3 volunteers. They were still selling tickets on the flight! I asked the GA what was going on, and she told me that, at the very last minute, they needed to get 4 FAs to MSP to work a flight, so, in that situation, they put them on the flight as positive space nonrevs (as opposed to standby nonrevs, when employees travel for pleasure) thereby overbooking the flight at the last minute.

3) Sometimes, flights can be weight restricted due to either, cargo, or (I believe) a mechanical situation that allows a plane to fly, but not as heavy.

There are probably a million reasons a flight can be overbooked that might not seem obvious. An easy one, of course, is a last minute aircraft downsize.

LoganFlyer

In addition to the reasons above, it's possible that the last 10 people to book a ticket all paid more than $1500 for their seat (or at least averaged that amount.) DL would make a profit by overbooking in that case. I've also found in cases of IROPS, DL tends to be willing to overbook by more people to try to get the people who were inconvenienced home sooner.

The Situation

The last time they asked for volunteers on one of my flights, they asked for 8, but ended up needing zero. The gate agent told me, because DL is not very good about zeroing out itineraries people have canceled (I can attest to that), that they don't really know how many people are actually booked on the flight - they just know its way less than the number of itineraries they see.

indufan

What would you do if you ran the airline and it was "full" and 10 people really wanted on that plane bad enough to pay $2000 a piece for it?

The bottom line is this is just how the airline industry works. In fact, many are overbooked by 10 or more and go out with empty seats.

Now, yes, $1500 and 10 are fairly extreme numbers. But they are fairly regularly handing out $1000 after the UA incident.

FSUnole03

So if IDB comp is $1350 max per passenger, but we're seeing VDB starting at $1500 and one woman last week getting $4k for ATL-SBN, why wouldn't DL just IDB to save money?

3Cforme

I call BS on that. They know who is on the way the second a boarding pass is scanned - for that flight or for segments that precede it. They have predictions for misconnects in real time.

indufan

Public relations at the moment.
I agree on the BS. It may happen but not widespread.

guv1976

Was that $1,500 cash, or a $1,500 voucher redeemable only on future Delta flights?

dinanm3atl

Cash or voucher I'd jump on that quick!

davetravels

When you say cash, I assume you mean some sort of a generic MC/Visa/Amex gift card. I don't think they pay out in cash, unless it's IDB.

jrl767

airlines have to report IDB statistics

LoganFlyer

True, but an Amex gift card, which some (many? most? all?) stations provide as an option for VDB compensation, is almost as good as cash. The only catch is the gift card they give you expires in 6 months.

CalVol

Sometimes a smaller bird gets subbed in. I've had that happen a couple of times.

Edit: DUH! I missed the last sentence.

Often1

Even the best predictive software -- and that is all RM is -- can go badly wrong. As DL's fortress hub, finding an overbooking by 10 with a potential oversale in the amount will happen once in a while.

While this incident will cost DL $15K, that is likely a heck of a lot less than ending overbooking at ATL will ever do.

Don't forget that it's easy to have a flight overbooked by 10 when boarding commences and then have it go out with empty seats.