Witnessed a first tonight at MSP - agent kept paging two individuals on the flight. I figured it was gate upgrades, however, it turned out to be the exact opposite. No change of equipment, no broken seats...and F was booked to 18 on an A319. The first passenger eventually showed and made a huge scene, arguing that she booked back in December (sounds like an award) and was entitled to a First Class seat. The second passenger eventually showed and was given the script "Our operations department overbooked First Class by two and you are unfortunately one of the passengers being moved to coach - all I have is a middle seat. Sorry!".

Is this something new to come? Get the upgrade at the last minute and worry about getting bumped to coach?

That is indeed very odd. Do you know where the flight was to or the flight number? They never overbook first class...until now, I guess. Someone must have messed up this time, unless there were some SkyTeam Elite Plus guaranteed WBC reservations or something...

I was once in a party of 12 in first class traveling to a caribbean country. This route is always full in first class, and we were traveling with some young children. First class was overbooked by 1 seat, and an elderly woman was told she wouldn't have a seat. She made a scene about the children being in first, etc., but needless to say we got our seats and she wound up in the back.

Wow..........What a reply, in Montana we would tip our hats to an elderly lady and offer her our seat......................oh, I see, you are from Aspen!

Really, even after she complained about children being in first? I would not give anyone acting high and mighty my seat.

I think the ST Elite Plus guarantee applies only to Y.

Do you say because you know for a fact they do/did not allow overbooking in F, or because you've never seen anyone bumped from F to Y? If they overbook Y, why wouldn't they overbook F?

I was the beneficiary of a NW overbooked F cabin in LAS about 5 years ago. I was booked on the 1am flight to MSP. At the gate, I inquired about switching my window F seat to an aisle. The agent briefly consulted with another agent who walked over and said something like "sir, we're in an unusual situation and you seem like a nice guy, here's the situation...."

I was offered a Y aisle with empty adjacent middle seat + $300 voucher and about 3 amenity packets, which I gladly accepted. They offered later flights as well if I had wanted it.

A different situation a couple of years ago, but one of the most chaotic scenes I've witnessed, was when CO downgraded a LAX-IAH flight from a 35J 764 to a 12F 753 and unattentive gate agents allowed many to board with OLCI boarding passes that no longer had correct seat assignments. The Captain spent at least 20 minutes in the cabin diffusing the situation. Many pax were very upset.

I know that, as a general policy, they don't overbook F.

I was under the impression that the most likely reason to get bumped from F was last minute FAMs bording. I assume when that happens it's going to suck to be a non-elite on an award ticket. I'm not sure who would get bumped on a full fare upgrade vs a plat upgrade. I guess I'd have strong words if I had paid extra money so I could use miles for an upgrade then got bumped.

The upgraded elite should be bumped, not the passenger who paid for the seat. A Plat would cost 1K miles to bump, Golds & Silvers would be free.

Any gate agents out there who can give us a real answer?

The miles would be returned, probably not the money. If would never pay extra money for a mileage upgrade that might or might not be available for a number of reasons.

I know you meant "defusing," but I'd say he certainly must have been "diffusing" (spreading about, scattering) a good number of pax!

Like Schmutzig said, they're not going to deliberately overbook first... that would be insane. If someone in first no-shows, they can either EUA or offer DOD upgrades for sale, so it's not like they'll be flying with lots of empty seats up front.

Wow.. that sounds cool. For a domestic flight, I would have taken this in an instant.

Actually, overbooking in FC or WBC happens more often than you might think.

1) Due to aircraft change and about 5 less first class seats, I got shafted away from my upgraded first class seat. They said they based it on time of check-in. I was Platinum. No compensation.

2) I witnessed four passengers returning to Japan on a 330-200 and was denied WBC seating. They were a WBC fare paying customer but somehow got the short end of the stick. Some compensation was provided but I don't know what that was.... Hopefully it's not a ECV, as they would probably try to book away from NW for the future anyways.....

Jiburi

Sorry you missed the upgrade, but that's not overbooking. That's irrops.

Perhaps they were trying to leave a day earlier or later and were trying to confirm their standby but were unsuccessful? I'm not sure what the issue was exactly, but I do know that NW does not overbook FC/WBC under normal circumstances. There are a number of reasons why there could be more pax with FC/WBC boarding passes than there are seats, but again, overbooking usually isn't one of the reasons.

Probably... but paying business class customers seem to expect a lot, and rash decisions like that might be unwise.

I knew one million-miler FF who flew mostly paid biz. He'd redeem 4 biz awards a year to take his family on vacation at their usual spot. One year, his preferred carrier didn't have award availability when he wanted it - so he switched alliances completely!

That sort of "sense of entitlement" and the behavior that results from it is impossible for me to fathom... but then, I'm a member of the "working poor" in academia who always flies as cheaply as possible, and I'm profoundly grateful even for little things like preboarding, EUA or food.

Now, I'm sure he got comped on his new alliance, but I'm equally sure that sooner or later, his new alliance will screw up every bit as badly as his old one - because I've personally seen them do so!