Forcibly Booked
Jun 12, 2002 | 10:28 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jan 2000
Location: Nashua, NH USA
Programs: Seashore Trolley Museum "flight attendant"
Posts: 2,015
Forcibly Booked
Is there really such a thing as forcibly booking someone on an oversold flight?
For example an unaccompanied minor misses a connection and there is only one more flight, oversold, out that evening.
For example, people volunteer to be bumped and are promised the next flight but when they select the volunteers and do the bump, the seats on the next flight are gone.
Do/Can they book the affected travelers anyway, print boarding passes for them immediately if all the boarding passes weren't already printed, and worry about asking for volunteers later on the over-over booked flight?
Travel tips:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/travel.htm
For example an unaccompanied minor misses a connection and there is only one more flight, oversold, out that evening.
For example, people volunteer to be bumped and are promised the next flight but when they select the volunteers and do the bump, the seats on the next flight are gone.
Do/Can they book the affected travelers anyway, print boarding passes for them immediately if all the boarding passes weren't already printed, and worry about asking for volunteers later on the over-over booked flight?
Travel tips:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/travel.htm
Jun 12, 2002 | 12:21 pm
#2
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Over the Bay Bridge, CA
Programs: Jumbo mas
Posts: 42,577
Yes there is such a thing. The "oversell" number is fictitious anyway, because it only arises well after all available seats have been reserved, and it can be a flexible number, and can still be overriden by an agent with the proper authority. How else could an airline "guarantee" a full-fare seat to a 1K flyer when availability is 0?
Jun 12, 2002 | 3:36 pm
#3
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Posts: 10,974
It happens all the time.
I have never heard of a passenger who was willing to pay full coach ever being denied a ticket, no matter how many tickets had already been sold for that flight. The gate staff will simply ask for people willing to get bumped. These bumped passengers will, unless the flight is VERY oversold, be offered a comp ticket for a free flight within the next year or two on that airline, and a seat on the next flight, possibly in F. The marginal cost to the airline for doing this is very small, as long as there were empty seats for the next flight. The comp ticket may never be used, and even if it is, it can only be used when the airline says it can be used; in other words, it can only be used on flights that the airline does not expect to be oversold. Thus, the airline gets the revenue from selling as many full coach tickets as the market demands, and has to pay very little in increased costs most of the time. (Sometimes, an airline will have to give a meal voucher or buy a bumped passenger a ticket on a competing airline, but even then I bet that the airline makes a nice profit from the difference between the full coach revenue and the cost of the ticket on which the bumped passenger was originally traveling. In any event, airlines try to avoid having to put bumped passengers on another airline by trying to only accept for bumping passengers that they can easily reaccomodate on one of their own flights later that day.)
I have never heard of a passenger who was willing to pay full coach ever being denied a ticket, no matter how many tickets had already been sold for that flight. The gate staff will simply ask for people willing to get bumped. These bumped passengers will, unless the flight is VERY oversold, be offered a comp ticket for a free flight within the next year or two on that airline, and a seat on the next flight, possibly in F. The marginal cost to the airline for doing this is very small, as long as there were empty seats for the next flight. The comp ticket may never be used, and even if it is, it can only be used when the airline says it can be used; in other words, it can only be used on flights that the airline does not expect to be oversold. Thus, the airline gets the revenue from selling as many full coach tickets as the market demands, and has to pay very little in increased costs most of the time. (Sometimes, an airline will have to give a meal voucher or buy a bumped passenger a ticket on a competing airline, but even then I bet that the airline makes a nice profit from the difference between the full coach revenue and the cost of the ticket on which the bumped passenger was originally traveling. In any event, airlines try to avoid having to put bumped passengers on another airline by trying to only accept for bumping passengers that they can easily reaccomodate on one of their own flights later that day.)
Jun 13, 2002 | 6:40 pm
#4
Suspended
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: GSP (Greenville, SC)
Programs: DL Gold Medallion; UA Premier Executive; WN sub-CP; AA sub-Gold
Posts: 13,393
I don't believe airlines will always oversell by another seat if someone is willing to pay full fare.
Assuming a web site is the same as phone or at the airport in person, there are lots of flights for which you cannot buy a ticket, no matter what.
I read about a man who wanted to take an AS flight to see his daughter in the hospital before she died. He was at the airport, begging for a seat (presumably full fare), and AS couldn't find volunteers. They could have added another seat to inventory, handed him a ticket, and involuntarily bumped someone from the flight, but they didn't.
[This message has been edited by JS (edited 06-13-2002).]
Assuming a web site is the same as phone or at the airport in person, there are lots of flights for which you cannot buy a ticket, no matter what.
I read about a man who wanted to take an AS flight to see his daughter in the hospital before she died. He was at the airport, begging for a seat (presumably full fare), and AS couldn't find volunteers. They could have added another seat to inventory, handed him a ticket, and involuntarily bumped someone from the flight, but they didn't.
[This message has been edited by JS (edited 06-13-2002).]