Design the new process to solve IVDB (a constructive, positive thread)
 

This is not a thread to discuss anything related to the recent incident. I've had enough of that. Whatever your opinions, it's time to move on to something constructive.

United's recently announced they will not involuntarily remove passengers with force (at least, that's what's being reported). I want to hear ideas on the best way for that to work.

Some possible topics:

Should the amount paid to give up your seat be increased? If so, should there be a cap? Should it continue to be offered in voucher format, should it be a no-restrictions credit, or should it be a check?

Should there be some sort of "immunity idol" designation that requires them to be left on board? An example would be specific professions - healthcare providers, first responders, etc. And should there be some sort of process by which everyone's asked to give some response as to why they shouldn't be bumped? In other words, should only people who can't give a reasonable answer as to why being bumped would significantly impact them be eligible to be bumped?

Should there be increased discussion amongst the crew and passengers about a deadlocked situation? For example, should the crew notify everyone on board that we have a passenger that cannot or will not leave and ask for more volunteers and continue to do that until the deadlock is resolved? Should the person unwilling to leave be required to stand up and give a reason to everyone else as to why?

Is there a better process by which bumped passengers can get to their destination faster? Can airlines cooperate better to handle these passengers and ensure less delay than is typical under the current system?

Please keep this positive and constructive. The goal is to design a superior process that gets the plane in the air and creates a win-win-win-win situation for the airline, the crew, the passengers who get bumped, and the passengers waiting for the situation to be resolved.

If this isn't an appropriate new thread to start, my apologies. I just think we need a forum to allow constructive dialogue about the whole process with none of the venom that we've all seen in threads about the specific incident in question.

Could be built into the app as an auction. Each person would have the opportunity to place a bid for what they are willing to take as compensation. You could have it for both points and miles or combination. United then has the ability to pick the lowest bidders

This is exactly my thought: I'm surprised an airline hasn't come out and said "Our goal is zero IDB and we think we can get incredibly close with a couple simple features in our app." An auction inside the app is the obvious/easy way to implement. I would think that would work on any of the Big 4 where app usage is at least sufficient enough to generate participation and meaningful bids.

Could even be a cost-saver for the airline: you might pick up a few people who *want* a couple extra hours and will put in low bids. Plus if miles were offered, I lot of FF'ers would happy play that game, which works out better for the airlines' books than gift cards/vouchers or obviously cash.

You could augment with a manual process involving gate agents (if app penetration is too low or for certain international markets), but my guess is that your typical domestic flight would attract sufficient bidders to avoid the IDBs just through the app.

There would be no need for rules about profession, status, etc. No caps needed.

This would be somewhat complicated by having to specify which flight you are willing to be bumped onto - I would bid different amounts for a flight in two hours and a flight the next day at 2:55pm. The bid would have to include whether you want a hotel/meal for overnight bumps.


In general I think the IDB compensation formula needs to change to incent the airline to get the passenger on the next possible flight. Right now, the airline wins by pushing a bumped passenger to the next flight with unsold seats, in the case of 3411 that was to the 2:55pm departure... I suspect they wouldn't have had this issue if they were guaranteeing a seat on the first flight in the morning.

If the airline had to pay the IDB compensation amount for each subsequent departure that the passenger was not accomodated on, there would be an incentive to find a volunteer on the earlier flights. Then you're looking at several tubes of 70 possible volunteers, and the odds of finding someone with flexible plans goes up.

Because they have time to do that and not delay a flight?

This thread, even though you said its not related to the incident, is just a knee jerk reaction to it.

The easiest fix: update your CoC legal terms to cover your butt when you IDB someone and offer more compensation for VDB. If UA offered $1500+ for cases like last week they need people to VDB we'd still talking about lack up upgrades and if R space would clear.

I'm taking a break from FT until this normal service has resumed.

Actually, I've seen well-thought-out proposals for how a seamless VDB auction would work for a few years now. App penetration is the game-changer that would enable this.

Well, their butts are already covered when it comes to IDB...as long as they don't kick people in the process. U.S. carriers can just chip off a small amount of money and the passenger really has no rights.

Agree with you on the VDB: in seems like in the incident, they just stopped the process at $800, which for an overnight delay ridiculously low unless someone *wants* to be in Chicago an extra night. Go to $1500, and I imagine somebody bites. But if they had this functionality in the app, they'd quickly get exactly to the right amount, and well *before* passengers boarded, thus getting the flight out of the gate much faster.

Exactly. I think that apart from some types of equipment downgrades, say above a threshold of seats lost, there should be no IDBs - ever. Pay the price to get the VDBs. There will almost always be a price that will get the VDBs. Any other system runs the risk of terribly inconveniencing passengers who trusted you to get them somewhere about on time.

I think the one thing that stuck out to me was that if the airline had simply offered the same $800 voucher they had, but instead a six hour van ride to SDF that night instead of a hotel room and flying out almost 24 hours later they may have had much greater success in getting volunteers.

Alternatively I would expect you will see them offering cash as a VDB incentive when necessary instead of using it only for IDB.

The media has reported the $800 vouchers offered in the recent incident have "restrictions." Is that correct? I thought a UA voucher could be spent like cash for UA flights?

If there are restrictions, they need to get rid of them. Even better, given the bumped pax a check.

Restrictions just like any other UA ETC. Expires in one year, one ETC per pax per ticket. All listed in this wiki. If you're planning on flying UA it's fine but it's not as easily spent as cash.

There will always be a price - and it's the obvious answer to avoid such incidents.

That addresses the passengers needs, but there's a lot that also has to be accounted for behind the scenes. My understanding is a partner's crew needed to be transported. In this case - who should bear the financial brunt of displacing passengers? United? United would have to work out new agreements with partner airlines (passing the costs on to them) allowing United to offer any amount of money to make room for their employees. The potential for fraud also goes up with GAs being able to offer significantly more $ - UA would have to beef up surveillance of the IDB payouts.

The best answer is to take caps off the $ payouts and play catch up with all the behind-the-scenes details that people overlook.

A Dutch auction for standby seats could make sense, but with VDB, there are too many variables. For one thing, if UA only takes VDB from its app, they are going to miss out on most passengers. This means you could bid $1,000 cash and still have a good chance of winning because it's just you and a handful of other people on that RJ who bothered with this app before you arrived at the gate. But if the gate agent makes announcements like they do now, where everyone hears about it, they might not need to offer quite that much for a short flight.

The biggest issue IMO is that the VDB offer is in UA dollars. Sure, try that first (since it's so cheap for the carrier), and if you get some takers but not enough, then offer cash, and keep increasing it to, say, $1,500. If that's still not enough, then IDB people and give them the same money as the VDB people plus some extra compensation because they were "volunteered" by UA.

I think the IDB compensation should be increased to 5x fare (total fare you paid, not just for that segment), minimum $1,000, no maximum. Watch IDB fall like a rock.

fix the holes in UA's IDB rules in their Contract of Carriage

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...age.aspx#sec25

1) Doesn't appear to address INTRASTATE travel. UA flies many routes that are wholly within a particular state. What is the policy for a flight from IAH-DFW or SFO-SAN?
2) There's still no written policy on who and and how IDB victims are a selected.
3) No mandate to use other carriers even if that other carrier has the quickest resolution route for the victim
4) It appears that UA calculates IDB compensation based upon the segment, not including connections....so if you have 50 dollar segment onto a 2000 dollar transcontinental leg, and you lose your flights, UA says they're only on the hook for 50 x the compensation multiplier. Even if the connecting flight is on UA. This is complete BS
5) No compensation for yanking you for a deadhead if the flight originates outside the US or Canada unless the origination country mandates it.

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This is what it should say. If the policies were like these below, I suspect that UA would be much less likely to overbook and persons IVDBed would be in a much better position.

1) A minimum of 1000 dollars will be paid in cash if a person is IVDBed and as a result, ends up at their destination more than 4 hours after the originally scheduled flight.
2) UA will transport an IVDBed person on the first flight to the destination, at the IVDBed request, regardless of the cost to UA if there is space available on another carrier
3) UA shall provide hotel and meals for the IVDBed person during the time they are being delayed. Hotel and meal choices shall be at least of a quality provided to UA pilots under their contract.
4) UA shall pay, in addition to other compensation, any prior booked hotel and other pre-paid charges unusable by the IVDBed person as a proximate result of the cancellation. This should include parking fees as well
5) These rules shall apply as a minimum on all UA operated OR managed flights OR flights where over 75% of the paid passengers are using United websites or reservations staff to purchase.
6) The specific metric to determine the IVDB selectee will be as follows:
a) The following people shall be usually be exempt: MP Elite passengers flying on purchased tickets, persons holding a seat who have been provided that flight in return for a prior VDB or IVDB, persons with a qualified disability, unaccompanied minors flying as such, and flight operations, maintenance personnel flying on positive space for direct flight operations reasons for UA flights.
b) The first selections shall be those flying on airline provided tickets under the employee flying benefits. Then those flying for purposes of UA non-flight operations business. Then non-elite passengers flying on miles. Then the passengers will be sorted by fare paid for travel between the origin and destination. If there is a tie, then the tie breakers will be (in order)...total time of travel, recovery time using UA metal, time of checkin, and time of purchase.
c) In the even that sufficient IVDB passengers are not available using the metrics above, the procedure should be as follows: 1) elites flying on non-revenue tickets, 2) then the criteria established in section b above by elite tier.

So when someone gets IVDBed, they'd be paid, they'd be taken care of properly, and they'd be kept whole to the greatest extent possible.

Heck, I think many people would WANT to be IVDBed under my fair proposal. I'll bet the other pax would be willing to trade with Dr Dao.

I use my phone solely as a phone, and I never carry it on an international itinerary. A process like this would bypass me and others like me, including non-frequent flyers who might not know about or use an app like this.

I was on a shortish oversold DL flight a week ago. There's a checkin option to volunteer for a bump, including specifying the amount you will accept (up to $500, IIRC). The GA asked for volunteers, without mentioning an amount. I was the only one to approach the podium. I was offered $400 for the next available flight, nearly 8 hours later. I countered with $600, but decided against it when I realized it also meant a downgrade from business to middle seat E+.

The next GA announcement included the offer of $600. Three people immediately headed for the podium and the first one took the offer.

One good thing about DL's plan is that when you volunteer as you check in, you are volunteering to consider the offer, you are not bound to accept it. I can't imagine a circumstance where I'd be willing to commit to a set amount without knowing what my replacement flight would be like (departure time and seating), particularly when a downgrade is a very real possibility.

This or at least from the UA forum. All these different threads are getting exhausting.

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.

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.

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?

That's called a charter.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The problem with this is that the bid value is not the lone determinant on whether a customer will accept a VDB. The new flights they will be assigned to and potential overnight accommodation come into play as well.

For example, a customer may initially be willing to accept a VDB for $400, until they find out the next available flight isn't until the following afternoon. i.e. They would take a $400 credit if they arrive at their destination 4 hours late, but want more if the delay is 24 hours plus. Or some other passenger may be adverse to a flight route that has a short connection or connects in a disliked airport.

The point is, dollar amount is not the sole factor in whether a pax will accept a VDB.... which is why the gate agent still needs to be part of the process.

You can easily add contingencies to the app. I bid $X if I can get on flight Y. A pax could submit several bids, up to a "no contingencies" bid. So I might bid $200 if I can get on a flight that leaves 2 hours later, $1000 for a flight that leaves the next morning, up to a completely non contingent offer of either $5000 cash or a R/T F ticket to Asia.

There should be no IDBs, only VDBs. Everyone has a price at which he or she would get off the plane. A few probably wouldn't get off for anything less than $1000000. That's fine, let them bid $1000000. The airline will pick someone else who bids lower.

And in those cases where employees are "must rides", and there are still no volunteers, just cancel the flights they were scheduled to work and have everyone deal with the repercussions. I fully expect DOT to address "must ride" employee travel and not have passengers suffer to accommodate that class of passenger.

I agree in theory this would be great, but in practice I am guessing 70+% of passengers would need the gate agents help in developing an alternative flight plan. You and I and most of the other FT posters would have no trouble coming up with a reasonable alternate flight plan to meet our needs, but we are in the minority of the general flying public.

And if you limit your bidding to only those who can develop a reasonable alternate flight plan, you have significantly limited the ability to find enough volunteers at a reasonable price. This why the GA must still be part of the process.

I have to agree, there are still folks who do not have a smart phone (my guess would be seniors) or are not app savvy enough.

The current rules need some tweeking:

VDB would be a flat 6x of the base fare paid in cash or check (redeemable in terminal). All other aspects would remain the same.

IDB would be a flat 4x of the base fare paid in cash or check (redeemable in the terminal). All other aspects would remain the same.

Each airline would still be able to use their own proprietary algorithm to select the IDB's.

If the selected IDB's don't comply, flight is cancelled and no compensation is provided.

Class downgrades would be paid at 2x base fare between cabin classes at time of purchase, paid in cash or check (redeemable in terminal).

This would be for all domestic flights industry wide. Uniform rules so all airlines and passengers are on the same page. Rules will be posted at all ticket counters and gates.

Quick, simple with speed and efficiency to get the flight out asap.


I have only flown 4 round trips in the last 1.5 years so it might not be the best idea, but it's my 2 cents in voucher form! :)

Just raise the VDB offer until someone accepts. No need for anything complicated.

"IDBs should be rare. In the event an IDB must occur the passenger shall be given 4xFull Fare Y for the segment or segments denied boarding in cash and placed on the next departing flight on the carrier on a must fly basis in an upgraded class of service (if the equipment has multiple classes). In the event the next departing flight is 12 or more hours later and a flight on an alternate carrier exists the passenger shall be placed on the alternate carrier flight if they desire."

Also, for those suggesting removing all cap limits, or having a cap limit so high (i.e. $1 million) that it essentially serves in practice as no cap, here is something to keep in mind:

At some point somewhere, eventually there would be a IDB situation where the cost became say $100k plus. Obviously this would be very rare, but sooner or later some flight somewhere would result in outrageous amount that would be owed.

At that point, the airlines could then sue that the law is requiring unjust compensation that far exceeds any damages caused, and they would probably win. This could result in the whole law being thrown out the window.

To provide an analogy, if I sign a contract to paint someones house but fail to do so, then I am in violation of the contract and can be sued. However, the person who sues me can only sue for an amount that is justifiable for the damages incurred, not a random $1 billion dollars because they feel like it.

For that reason, I think a good cap would be in the $5 to $10k range.. Significant enough that it would rarely get that high, but even if it did, it would not create an undue financial burden and compensation being made due by the airline.

How is that in any way "easy"? That is more complicated than the current setup.

I think you're confused. A cap is the maximum amount they'd be allowed to pay, and I don't think such a thing exists, even now. What you're talking about is establishing a floor, or minimum amount of IDB compensation. I think a good place to start is 2-4x the maximum fare sold on that flight. Don't tie it to a specific dollar amount because there's this thing called inflation. In any case, this makes IDB much more expensive than finding volunteers for VDB, which makes IDB effectively a thing of the past.