JohnnyP

I fly a 4-6/year between Denver and Seattle/Portland. Of course, I always trying to maximize my bump opportunities. Even though these are, by their very nature, illusive, are there certain routes/flights that are periodically oversold? (I'm thinking, Friday flights, Sunday flights, holiday flights.)

I've found, for example, that the Friday 6PM SEA-PDX flight is usually a good bet. I'm batting 3/5 in the last 12 months. I'm 1/3 on the 6:30PM SFO-PDX flight and the same on the 8PM SFO-SEA flight.

For example, looking at 4th of July weekend, I'm planning to maximize my mileage (and bump opportunities) by flying through California (e.g. DEN-SAN-SFO-SEA, etc.) to Seattle and back. Any good recommendations on routing that would be prime for bumps?

auh2o

DEN-LAS LAX-LAS SFO-LAS...basically anything to LAS on a Friday or out of LAS on a Sunday is a great bet!

EmoryFlyer

I completely agree about LAS flights on Sundays.....ORD, DEN, IAD, LAS, SFO....almost always completely zeroed out! ^

das

I've flown on at least a dozen SEA-SFO/LAX flights that are zeroed out prior to departure with no volunteers needed. I did manage to bump off the 10pm SFO-SEA flight (on a Thursday night) because a 50 person school group threw off the no show factor.

iluv2fly

I can certainly verify this!!

Ocn Vw 1K

I know it's off your route, but if you could work in a UX seg, ex-LAX on a Thurs./Fri. afternoon, esp. with EMB-120s (SEA->LAX->SNA->DEN), that's been a cash machine lately, with Skywest paying close attention to weight restrictions, esp. with warmer wx. Whole banks of flights have been weight-restricted to 5-6 destinations with at least 1-2 volr's taken per flight.

da1dan

SFO-PDX has been real good for me. Most of the time Sunday evenings.
Dan

JohnnyP

Some great suggestions! I usually try to avoid the 757's that they have running around to a few places and focus on A319s and 737s... smaller jets seem to lend themselves to faster "fills."

Ocn Vw 1K, I like your idea about the EMB-120s out of LAX. I may try to schedule that in on my next trip!

SLO1K

I must agree with Ocn Vw 1K. If you could do a UX flight, you are almost guaranteed a bump on Friday night. Home base for me is SBP and a Friday night flight from SFO or LAX is almost always oversold. What happened is that the FAA began to enforce a weight restriction on the Brasilia that they used to only enforce during hot summer days. The EMB-120 Brasilia typically seats 30-31 (depends on front or rear Galley) and due to the new weight restrictions that are now always in place they usually only Load it to 27. (United/Skywest - if you are listening, if the restriction is always going to be like this let's take a row of seats out and make these tin can Brasilia aircrafts a bit more comfortable) Depending on the weight of bags that customers check, this number goes up or down. In addition, the number of bump volunteers on these flights is usually rather low. Instead of a roundtrip to any of the 48 states, gate agents are quickly offering a $600 UA travel voucher. Get a couple of these and you can take a HNL or LIH vacation in short order. Heck, bring a few suitcases with rocks in them if you want to increase your odds. ;-)

- SLO1K

da1dan

I wouldn't avoid the 757's. About 1/4 of my west coast bumps have been from 757's. They seem to use them for late afternoon or early evening flights that I have found to be very good bump times.
Dan

DreamlinerI

I am surprised no one has mentioned SFO-SMF and back. These UX flights seem to always be oversold. I have also seen SFO-ACV flights with lots of bumps.

nmenaker

I take this flight often, and the 8:50, 11:30 flights always are asking for volunteers.
They are canadair jets, LAX_SFO is similar, but LAX_SJC is less so.

I would put ones chances at 80% on Mondays, for the two early flights, but not the 06:50, that is an airbus and always has seats.