Onceuponatime, longlongago, I recall an airline that initiated a new booking policy for a popular route. They promised that if you showed up at the gate in time and paid your fare, you would have a seat on a plane to the planned destination, no advance bookings needed or accepted.
On the first day of the new policy, exactly one more passenger arrived at the gate than the plane could hold. The airline made good on their promise, and rolled out another plane. The news article said he rode in “solitary splendor” to his destination.
I’m not bothering to read anything you wrote here, because it’s all beside the point.
The statement made was “Nobody is going to stop flying” and my answer is “So far, we have at least 20,000 people saying they will here…whether or not they’re actually telling the truth”. So “nobody” (I.E. zero) and “20,000” is a pretty big difference in numbers. That’s the only point I was making and care to make. Beyond that, I don’t wish to get involved in any debate or arguing about it. You can go away from this “winning”, for all I care. Feel free to massively pick apart and question this post too, while you’re at it.
He said “That’s a compelling suit”. “”*It’s pretty outrageous," said Jim Keindler an aviation lawyer with Kreindler & Kreindler in New York for 34 years… Kreindler has seen just about everything over the course of three and a half decades representing air travelers, so when I saw the video, I called to ask what he thought. “That’s a compelling suit,” he told me explaining, “For United to decide an employee’s presence is more important than a doctor seeing patients is pretty wild…But even if the passenger isn’t a doctor, Kreindler says the airline does not have the right to evict passengers without cause. “First of all its wrong, it’s their problem to get their people where they have to be to work, work from even if it means flying them on another carrier. They shouldn’t be forcibly removing people by lottery,” he said.”"
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AFAIK (and I used that several times) Southwest is one of the few (only?) airlines where canceling the ticket will get you full credit for the value of the ticket on your future purchases of tickets, I think, for one year.
While I am not justifying the passengers actions at all, why didn’t the airline offer the $800 deal over the intercom asking for volunteers?
Note I don’t buy the idea that overbooking is required for cheap fares, they could simply move to a penally for no shows without just cause. They couldn’t do so during the days of paper tickets due to the agreements to honor other airlines tickets but that ship sailed a long time ago.
(I use to abuse that privilege volunteering to be bumped on an economy airline and walking over to United gate back in the day)
Is “once upon a time, long long ago” code to indicate that what follows is a fairy tale? (To be abundantly clear, I’m not accusing you of lying, I’m just not sure if you are being serious.)
Airlines do not have an extra aircraft and crew just sitting around ready to go on a few moments notice; nor are departure slots available at short notice at major airports. If you think this really happened, do you have a cite?
My honest guess would be significantly more than add up to $800. I know people who have blacklisted airlines for less (and I, easygoing myself, even have one airline, Spirit, which I will never fly, no matter how cheap.) I don’t think it’s a stretch that this will be a net loss for them.
No cite, just memory. I think it was in a Time mag article because I got most of my news from that source. And if the airline was trying to promote their “walk right in, sit right down, Baby, let us take you there…” service, I find it quite logical that they were prepared for overflow. At least the first few times.
I wish I knew, but I don’t. The phrase “he rode in solitary splendor” sticks in my mind. You can treat it as a fairy tale if you wish. I don’t find it impossible or even unlikely when promotion is paramount.
Does anyone else recall a time (1970’s?) when airlines tried this kind of service on heavily traveled medium/short distance commuter routes, like Wash DC to NYC or DC to Miami, etc.?
I remember flying some time in 1980, I believe it was from NYC to Chicago, and there were maybe 10 people on the flight. Some kind of Boeing plane. “Solitary splendor” was close enough.
I once flew a flight that took off about 9 or 10pm (I forget where to where) and it was a large plane, but only about 95 passengers. I remember everyone pretty much had an whole seating section to themselves…there were also entire rows that were empty.
I sell thingumabobs for a living. Today I sold out all of my thingumabobs early in the day. Later on a guy showed up saying “I am a REALLY IMPORTANT PERSON and I need me some thingumabobs RIGHT NOW.”
So naturally I went to the home of another not-so-important customer who had bought a thingumabob earlier in the day, broke down the door and forcefully repossessed his thingumabob so I could sell it to the REALLY IMPORTANT PERSON . . .
True. That said, sometime in the early 2000s, I did manage to get an 8-hour leg of an international flight where I had the entire middle section of seats to myself. It was glorious. Probably the only time I slept for hours on a flight as I got four seats to splay myself over.
