Searched and (perhaps unsurprisingly) couldn't find a thread on this so am starting one for any VDB reports — I somehow managed to get my first-ever VDB (on B6 of all carriers, and with no equipment swap involved!) this Monday at JFK... Was booked on the 2.50pm JFK-BOS that was over by 4, and got a $700 voucher to take the 7.35pm — pretty good for a 4.5 hour delay I would say.

Also when I got bumped every remaining JFK-BOS for the day was sold out, but the supervisor who rebooked us mentioned that in these situations they'd just confirm us on the next flight and roll the oversale over. We did get asked if we were willing to fly the next day — with hotel rooms for those who aren't local to NY (no TWA though), and one of the other volunteers took him up on the offer. Another volunteer (who made the mistake of saying he was local) then offered to fly Tuesday for more $ — supervisor told him to name his price and he asked for another $700, but got told no can do, so I guess B6 does have their limits. The supervisor did tell him to just try volunteering again on the (now-oversold) 7.35pm flight, which he did, but sadly there were at least 2 no-shows that evening so he made it out.

I then decided to try my luck and offered to cancel my ticket and take Amtrak if they'd give me a $1000 voucher instead (there were seats on the Acela for ~$200 that evening) — the supervisor was actually open to it (I think being Mosaic might have helped there), but said he needed to get permission and went to make some calls, and I also got denied haha.

And for anyone who accepts a VDB at JFK just know the rebooking process takes forever — we spent 30 minutes at the CS desk waiting for new BPs and the travel credits to come through, since I guess it's something that doesn't really happen that often (and presumably because they had to oversell our new flights to get us on too, and who knows how that works with B6 IT ).

I'm assuming this is related to the NEA with AA since B6 never oversells a flight on purpose.

Very interesting

yes, AA has been putting a lot of passengers on B6 flights. That's probably what caused this. Now, if B6 can only start doing the same!

jetBlue did mention in the last earnings call they are investing a lot money for NEA. let's hope they improve in these rebooking/reaccomodation areas over the next few quarters.

So after we got bumped and were hanging around to get rebooked we were chatting with a commuting B6 pilot who couldn't get a jumpseat on our flight (and obviously didn't make it off standby either), and he mentioned the oversale was because they had to position crews to BOS � not sure if true or not, but also I don't think AA can oversell B6 flights either, so a deadhead crew seems a more likely reason for this particular scenario. Also AA hasn't been flying JFK-BOS throughout the pandemic and looks like they're only restarting 11/2 (when the slot-squatting begins!) with 4x A321Ts lol (and if you're an AA elite you can get a lie-flat for $39 since the J cabin is sold as MCE)

As an aside pilot was complaining with the NEA how B6 is taking on a lot of the AA regional flying out of NYC, and he thinks the crews are going to be stretched thin since they stopped hiring/training during covid � let's see what happens to the operation over Thanksgiving I guess

Yesterday, Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, aka "busiest travel day of the year" 11AM BOS-SAN was oversold by two seats. They immediately offered $700 vouchers each and a seat no the 4:30(ish) flight instead. We needed to get home earlier so passed on the offer, but a solo traveler ran up and grabbed one of the two offers. A family of 3 also offered but didn't want to get split up. Agent said they could all move to the 4:30 flight but could only get 2 vouchers and they refused.

I didn't see anything after that, but we left almost on time (catering didn't show up until 25 minutes before scheduled departure, even though the equipment was there overnight), and made up some time en route until we sat for 10 minutes next to many empty gates waiting for the only gate we seemingly were allowed to go to was available.