I don’t understand why airlines overbook and then bump some passengers when too many show up.
The explanation usually starts with the fact that some percentage of booked passengers can be counted on to miss their flight, therefore there will be empty seats. So they oversell to ensure a full flight. Occasionally, too many show up and someone has to be bumped.
That explanation rests on the idea that if a passenger misses the flight, the airline has to give back the money (or a credit). So when Mr. Slowpoke is late to the gate, the airline gives back his money, and that leaves an open seat that will generate no income if there’s not an overbooked passenger waiting to take it. So overbooking is how they protect themselves.
Makes sense up to a point. But why does the airline give back the money for the missed flight? If I buy a theater ticket or a concert ticket, or a movie ticket, and I just don’t show up for the event, they don’t refund my money and resell the seat. I paid for the seat, they got my money for it, and if I’m not sitting in it they don’t really care. Seems fair enough to me.
Wouldn’t it be ridiculous if you showed up at the theater and they told you they oversold the performance and too many people showed up, so you can’t come in?
I suppose the airlines refund the money to keep passengers happy when they miss a flight, but isn’t that robbing Peter to pay Paul? You’re keeping one passenger happy but that policy requires overbooking, which in turn means you risk screwing another innocent passenger who showed up ready for his flight.
Well, because it’s not only a person missing the flight, it’s also a person cancelling at the last minute.
There’s a lot more instances of this than there is of overbooking, so it makes sense to make the people who cancel/miss flights happy and returning customers than worrying about the more rare event of someone needing to be bumped. And when they are bumped, there are things the airline can do to keep them happy like upgrading seats, vouchers for a free trip somewhere, putting them up in a nice hotel, etc.
Airlines overbook because they know a certain percentage of passengers will either cancel at the last minute or not show up. Since it is most cost-effective to operate the plane at capacity, they overbook to try to keep the plane full.
It’s not just airlines that overbook. I’ve been bumped by hotels and car rental companies, as well. For my money, the airlines handle it a lot better than anyone else.
There are a lot of reasons why a company would need to overbook, but they all boil down to this:
There are X percent of customers who at the last minute will either not need, be prevented from, or find an alternative to, the thing they reserved. Business meetings get canceled, connecting flights run late. The traveler gets a seat on another flight that fits the schedule better. Etc. etc.
There are airlines that do not overbook, and do not refund tickets for missed flights.
[rant] For example, I flew Independence Air to Las Vegas this spring. I intended to stay in Vegas through Monday, and take the red-eye back home. Stupidly, I booked a flight for 12:10 am Monday, instead of Tuesday. I showed up at the gate a day too late, and they refused to seat me on the next flight or refund my ticket. In a gesture of their kindheartedness, they offered to sell me a ticket on the next flight for $800. In the end, I flew back on US Air for $300 or so – a stupid mistake in booking the ticket online for the wrong day really hit me in the pocketbook.
Personally, I will never travel Independence Air again because of this policy and the outrageous return ticket price they quoted me. As a consumer, I consider the tiny risk of being bumped from a flight to be well worth the more liberal refund policy.[/rant]
Or you can book properly and calculate how much money the empty seats from the cancels cost you, and tie that back into other fares, and not overbook.
Or you can advertise low rates to certain places on short notice and create some last minute riders who normally wouldn’t fly anywhere. Mix in overbooking and non-overbooking as needed.
For admin and cost, option one is easiest to implement.
The two times I’ve been on overbooked flights (that I know of), the airline people announced that the plane was overbooked, and that they were offering [significant amount of money] to anyone willing to take a later flight. They didn’t lack volunteers at either occasion, so no one need be unhappy.
A couple I know makes a point of booking on the most overbooked flight they can find, and getting on the bump list early. They end up flying for about half price because of being bumped, and they often get a free meal in an airport restaurant, and sometimes a shuttle home. They love it, and get disappointed when they’re not bumped.
You would obviously have preferred that the hit be taken in the airline’s pocketbook. That’s understandable.
But they weren’t the one that made the mistake. The principle that “he who screws up bears the cost of the screwup” is a fairly sound and sensible one.
Just don’t ever try this on Air France. My daughter and I were returning from Paris, when we were offered money – I think it was $300 each – if we’d take a later flight, to which we agreed. I got the ticket agent to write the amount down, confirming that we understood this correctly, and that the amount quoted was US dollars. We were told to go to another desk to receive the reward, but when we got there, the amount was actually considerably less – something like half as much. When we argued about it, the agent at *that * desk became angry and *tore up our tickets! * We had to re-book on our original flight, except now our original seats had been given away and we had to take seats several rows apart. This would normally be not a great big deal, but my daughter was at the time severely afraid of flying and was a nervous wreck. And no one would switch seats with us to let us sit together. Just to add injury to insult, when we got back home & claimed our luggage, my hard-sided, gorilla-can-stamp-on-it sturdy American Tourister suitcase had been really mangled. Its handle was all but torn off, and the sides looked like someone had taken a sledge hammer to it. The compensated us sufficiently that I could buy a replacement briefcase, but that’s about it. I hate Air France.
No, because a certain number of tickets don’t have seats attached until you check in, and some of those tickets can’t check in anywhere but at the gate.
For example, my office assigns me to flights as late as a day before takeoff. I show up at the airport, check in out at the counter, and (because of my FF miles) choose an empty exit row seat to sit in. Before I was a frequent flyer, I had to do a lot of BWI-LAX flights sitting in 98B (center seat, back row, between 1st and 2d place in the America’s Armpits contest), because I got handed whatever was still empty 20 minutes before takeoff.
There were always people in line behind me who didn’t get to fly, and sometimes I envied those poor souls.
Your’re completely missing the point of why airlines overbook. See Philster’s post.
If airlines overbook and someone doesn’t show up for their seat, there will likely be another paying customer standing right there to fill the seat. Therefore, neither the airline nor the passenger take a hit in the pocketbook. It’s a mistake to believe that airlines always lose money when someone doesn’t show up, that is exactly why most overbook in the first place.
And as far as screwups, yes, I know I’m at fault in that instance. Is there a problem with consumers deciding that Company A is more customer-friendly than Company B? There’s another maxim that goes, “It’s easier to attract flies (customers) with honey (good customer service) than vinegar (bad customer service).”
There also seems to be blackout periods during which no seats are available. However, when I have booked with seat charts, the actual seating seems to be uncorrelated to what the charts have shown. I’ve booked a seat in what seemed to be a very crowded flight that turned out to be empty.
There is another reason for no-shows: the round trip is cheaper than one way issue. I know some airlines monitor for this, but I’m sure it still happens.
I have a related question. In the good old days, one could rebook or get a refund without penalty. Today there is usually a stiff penalty for changing flights. Has the no-show rate gone down because of this?
Except that you can plan when you’re going to arrive at the theater, but if you’re on a connecting flight, you have no control on when you arrive at the airport. Also you can walk in late at a theater…
We business travelers often change our plans as well. And it doesn’t have to be at the last minute. Say the plan sells all it’s seats a month before the flight. If you can’t book a seat because it’s full, you might take another airline. Then if I change my business plans, that seat that could have gone to you now is empty.
I think the airlines look for volunteers to be bumped because they need to give more money to involuntarily bumped passengers. I was flying home the day before Thanksgiving on an overbooked flight. The flight attendants had to increase the amount they were offering a couple of times before they got enough volunteers.