frequentlywrong

Why not add a fee to guarantee that you won't get bumped? $25 extra. Of course, you could still volunteer to be bumped for a fee, but they can't kick you off.

uastarflyer

As with most customer facing policies post merger, reset with PMUA policy and adjust as necessary from there.

I blame Smisek. He is smirking at Dao's bloody face image on tv right now I bet.

frequentlywrong

The auction style app will be in play soon, I bet. I think the IDB fee cap should be raised or eliminated altogether. Eventually, it might be cheaper for the airlines to fly with a few empty seats.

Or, how about this: a floating ticket price. As more people book a flight, the price per seat goes down for everyone, and those who booked early end up getting a refund. You think that's crazy, right? Except, that is exactly how the seats are prices now, except those who book early sometimes end up paying more. But, lets not pretend that the price of seats isn't flexible and constantly changing. Why shouldn't some of those changes be for the benefit of the customers?

Kevin AA

That's called a charter.

cmdinnyc

I agree. The best "fix" is for DOT to eliminate the practice of IDBs, or set an absurdly high payout to any pax that are IDB'd from a flight (maybe 10x the highest paid fare in the same cabin). Airlines are then free to overbook, but there would be a much, much higher incentive to find volunteers. And the payout would have to rise accordingly.

How that's accomplished - app-enabled reverse auction, GAs yelling / begging / threatening people to take a bump - would be up to UA to figure out.

ellenyc

Airlines overbook as part of their revenue maximization strategy. For the most part, it works out. But when it doesn't, and they are oversold, the airline is the one who took the financial risk, not the passengers. The hiding behind a fine print of a one-sided CoC needs to end. All markets have a clearing point, and the airline needs to keep offering higher incentives until the necessary number of passengers take the offer for voluntary denial.

JBord

Right, this is the issue. You can't solve a business problem with a government regulation. UA needs to treat it as a business problem. They're free to overbook, but they have to appropriately accept and assess the risk if they want to avoid big payouts. Get rid of IDB and put a rule in place for the minimum and maximum allowed for VDB (some % of the full fare that's filed). Or as others have suggested, Dutch auction. This will force UA to address their business problem and re-evaluate how much they want to oversell and on which flights. Right now, there is little incentive for them to do so.

Zeeb

It'll actually take up to $800 if you put it in manually. They only show up to $500 as an option in order to peg people to a lower number. But as you indicated, I've only once ever seen a gate agent actually use it, everybody just starts the auction for volunteers at the gate.

Allan38103

The "I" in IDB stands for "Involuntary". As in "mandatory". So you need something to coerce enforcement. That's called a "law", and for that you need government, as in "Congress". Fat chance of ever getting something contrary to the airlines industry's interest to make it through the lobbying process. Any meaningful change would take YEARS to enact. A market- based solution could be enacted in 48 hours.

If there were no "I", but just a "V"DB. The market would have found the appropriate price for the compensation in this recent incident.

For whatever the government does, or fails to do, the airline industry will adjust its business models, pricing structure, and CoC's to adapt. And wouldn't THAT end up better for the customer?

findark

An airline IDBing a passenger is roughly akin to them breaching a contract for transport. I think it's completely reasonable to provide for compensation in this case by statute, and in relation to the original cost of the service contracted for.

If the general belief of society is that the IDB payment does not sufficiently disincentivize the practice (i.e. Dr. Dao was probably only going to be due around $400 instead of the $800 voucher offered), then the solution should simply be to raise the defined amount of IDB comp. The idea that an airline should be on the hook for "whatever it takes" is unrealistic and not conducive to business as it carries an unlimited risk. The vast majority of contract law is built around the idea of there being well-defined (contractural or precedent from previous torts) consequences for breach of contract.

If there are two things I think could be improved about the statutory compensation, (a) I think it should be on the basis of the passenger's breaks in travel - if someone is IDBed from the second segment of LAX-ORD-SDF they should be compensated for the LAX-SDF ticket if they are late delivered to SDF, and (b) the protection should apply to premium cabins as well, where reaccomodation in a lower cabin is not sufficient.

mre5765

Limit the VDB auction to serious players who have a smart phone and airline app. Notify people booked on the flight the auction has started and start the bidding using the app.

Since each pax bidding paid different money for the ticket, some pax get a big VDB offer, some get a smaller VDB offer. This is better for the airline because its VDB offers are not broadcast over the PA for everyone to hear. Bids need to be customized because each customer is on a different itin, and part of the bid is the exact seat and flight the pax is on.

A machine processes the bids, and identifies the winners. Winners get their comp electronically, including a new BP. If they have checked bags, there is an indication if the bag will be retrieved or not, and if retrieved which carousel.

The auction is initially open to just those with no checked bags and no onward itin.

Everything is done silently. Pax not in the auction have no idea there were VDBs. The GA is not part of the process, so the stress is reduced.

endrond

What mre5765 suggests for an auction structure sounds good to me.

More broadly, this is not a particularly difficult type of auction to design, even taking into account the fact that some of the bidders aren't very sophisticated players.

thesun

I think the mere existence of IDB is a surprise to the masses. There's no way to 100% eliminate the situation where someone is unable to occupy a seat on the flight they paid for. But here's one idea that comes to mind:

Don't oversell flights. Reserve space on each flight for deadheading employees. Sign agreements among the airlines, similar to however NRSA works but for company travel. If there is reserved space left at say T-30 or whatever, it opens up to standby passengers. If more space is required but no seats are open, then tough luck. The airline needs to arrange alternate transportation or cancel the flight that the employees are traveling to operate.

Have some rules for compensation in a situation where there is an equipment swap to a smaller aircraft, a seat cannot be used due to an issue with the seat, unexpected weight limitations, etc. Cover the situation where two people are accidentally assigned to the same seat and there are no extra open seats. And no more upgrading or putting someone on a flight and then downgrading or kicking them off when the original occupant happens to show up after the boarding time is over.

Make this federal law and apply to all US and foreign carriers flying into the US. As it will be applied to all airlines, it will be a fair marketplace and costs will be transferred to the flying public. It just gets a bit silly trying to cover all the different situations that can happen. But the key is that it is uniform so the government can create one document discussing the situation and everyone knows what to expect.

Even with something like this, there will be situations where due to changing conditions or human error someone ends needs to leave the aircraft after boarding. I don't know what you do in this case if the passenger refuses to leave and you don't want to involve law enforcement.

kavok

There is a very easy way to do this:
At check-in, which most people do online electronically, a question pops up asking how much it would cost for you to take a VDB. This would also be done at the check-in desk for those pax who do not check in electronically.

Provide the following eight options (or something similar):
$200, $400, $800, $1200, $2000, $10,000, "Would not accept any offer", "Enter Custom Amount"

Then you have a list of what each customer's price may be. Once you are in an overboard situation, you then:

Step 1- The Gate Agent calls up the person(s) who made the lowest bid, and asks them if they would be willing to be routed on different flight XXX-YYY for the amount they offered. If they say yes, one problem solved. If not....
Step 2- If they say no, you then ask them if they would take that routing for a higher amount, and what that higher amount would be. If that increased amount is still the lowest bid, accept and problem solved. If not...
Step 3- If the increased amount is above the next lowest bid, you document it and say we may come back to you if needed. You then call the person to the gate with the next lowest bid and repeat step 1.

99.9% of the time you will be able to VDB everyone using this system.

exwannabe

Overbooking insurance offered by the airline.

Something like:

OK, I admit this would never happen. But I do think it could be a reasonable solution.

And if not, try flipping it around.

A booking option to offer (but not commit) to volunteer? $5 off your ticket to accept the risk of an IDB. You would simply be low on the priority list. Still available for DOT mandated compensation or any VDB auctions.