Passenger Forcibly Removed From Overbooked UA Flight

[JohnK]

And another story has surfaced of Air Canada overselling a 28 seat aircraft by 6 seats and then choosing to offload a 10 year old travelling with family for holidays to Costa Rica.

Luckily family found out before flight and travelled 2 hours by car to make another connection on Air Canada but when they arrived that flight was cancelled.

They then went the next day.

This is not the right way to go about business. And apologising doesn't make up for ruining someone's holiday.

 

[Flying mermaid]

This has been suggested before in one of these discussions, but maybe what airlines should start selling is a "guarantee" option with their tickets. Pay the extra fee and you are guaranteed of a seat no matter what overselling takes place. Don't take the optional extra and you take your chances as now.

Could see myself not paying it when say going on a shopping trip to Sydney when I really don't care when I arrive/get back home, but paying it when scheduling matters. Passengers deserve to have peace of mind when flying. There is enough to go wrong with irrops, without worrying that you might be booted off a plane because the airline is maximising profits. This allows them to make even more profit, while allowing people to choose between a definite seat or going into the overselling lottery. Possibly buying a flex ticket actually does the same thing, but it is not spelled out.....

 

[Milefest]

This has been suggested before in one of these discussions, but maybe what airlines should start selling is a "guarantee" option with their tickets. Pay the extra fee and you are guaranteed of a seat no matter what overselling takes place. Don't take the optional extra and you take your chances as now.

And customers should be able to pay an additional fee on top of that to guarantee guarantee a seat for when guaranteed seats are overbooked.

 

[Denali]

Apparently this happened overnight - wonder what brought this on. Edit: Seems the plane had been delayed for a couple of hours.

Delta pax being loud and swearing, pax around her were having a good laugh at her behaviour so they deplaned the aircraft.

"No no no no no. They about to give me a cheque, big time. I need all the cheques. And they dont know who my momma is"

https://youtu.be/l1Aexh0458I

 

[Flying mermaid]

And customers should be able to pay an additional fee on top of that to guarantee guarantee a seat for when guaranteed seats are overbooked.

Don't be cynical! I think it could work. Of course there could only be a limited number, but I would happily pay it for peace of mind. Given what happened with EmilyP's parents even Gold status is no protection for off loading.....

 

[oz_mark]

This has been suggested before in one of these discussions, but maybe what airlines should start selling is a "guarantee" option with their tickets. Pay the extra fee and you are guaranteed of a seat no matter what overselling takes place. Don't take the optional extra and you take your chances as now.

In Australia, I'd like to see the Consumer Guarantee provisions of the ACL enforced, or strengthened, to make sure this stuff doesn't happen here. Sell a seat, make sure its available.....

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Re: Rumour:[Denied by RR] Qantas to ban JQ SYD-MEL pax from F lounges & send to J lou

I'm opposed to any seat guarantee... that's what we have a ticket for in the first place! I would fall foul of advertising laws for people who didn't take up the guarantee? What are they buying? A spot on the plane that might be available after all those with guaranteed seats have been accommodated?

 

[Flying mermaid]

Re: Rumour:[Denied by RR] Qantas to ban JQ SYD-MEL pax from F lounges & send to J lou

I don't think I have enough years left to me to see it happen. There seems to be no will in Australia to introduce the sort of protection that exists overseas (and even that doesn't prevent overselling). So while we wait and the decades tick by, I like alternatives....

 

[dajop]

Re: Rumour:[Denied by RR] Qantas to ban JQ SYD-MEL pax from F lounges & send to J lou

I'm opposed to any seat guarantee... that's what we have a ticket for in the first place! I would fall foul of advertising laws for people who didn't take up the guarantee? What are they buying? A spot on the plane that might be available after all those with guaranteed seats have been accommodated?

Exactly. This would just be abused and become another revenue stream for airlines.

The trouble isL

Belief of passengers: ticket = a ticket to get from A to B at a specified time on specified day in specified class (subject to weather constraints and other "acts of god")
Belief of airlines: ticket = vague promise to get from somewhere close to A to somewhere closet to B at a random time of the airlines choosing, somehow, not necessarily in the same class, and if the passenger doesn't like what they've offered, give them a full refund of the $120 they've paid so they can take that to another airline and pay $300 because it was cancelled at last minute

And don't get me on the even vaguer promise that award tickets are. (let's cancel the flight and not accommodate the passenger on other flights because there is no award inventory. What a load of BS)

 

[andyhui01]

This has been suggested before in one of these discussions, but maybe what airlines should start selling is a "guarantee" option with their tickets. Pay the extra fee and you are guaranteed of a seat no matter what overselling takes place. Don't take the optional extra and you take your chances as now..

Next thing we know we are paying extra to guarantee seats on a bus, train, cinema, concerts... etc. As much as airlines these extra revenue, that would mean admitting that they oversell tickets and what are they going to sell/market it as?

I'd rather see a more structured and better compensation system for offloading. $800 for overnight delays or even easier, $100 / hour until the next flight is scheduled for Dom and more for Intl. If the GA asks me to take the next MEL-SYD flight for $100, I'd just say yes and go back to the lounge for another beer.

 

[dajop]

NIf the GA asks me to take the next MEL-SYD flight for $100, I'd just say yes and go back to the lounge for another beer.

I expect MEL-SYD flights are not really such a problem. With high frequencies and large aircraft, and strong business traffic, they're probably ripe for overselling but are also easy to fix if flight is genuinely oversold, and there is a tendency to move early arrivers forward to earlier flight to solve potential problems later in the day.

 

[Flying mermaid]

what are they going to sell/market it as?

I'd rather see a more structured and better compensation system for offloading. $800 for overnight delays or even easier, $100 / hour until the next flight is scheduled for Dom and more for Intl. If the GA asks me to take the next MEL-SYD flight for $100, I'd just say yes and go back to the lounge for another beer.

I am sure the Qantas spin Meisters will think of something. . I am not saying I wouldn't like all those things as well, but I also don't like banging my head against a brick wall.

 

[JohnK]

I expect MEL-SYD flights are not really such a problem. With high frequencies and large aircraft, and strong business traffic, they're probably ripe for overselling but are also easy to fix if flight is genuinely oversold, and there is a tendency to move early arrivers forward to earlier flight to solve potential problems later in the day.

The local airlines and Qantas in particular manage high frequency routes such as SYD-MEL/BNE quite well. Flow forward if they look like having issues later in day. Personally I avoid the last few flights of the night with my preference being the 3rd last flight or earlier. In the 9 years I have been commuting the only time I've not travelled on the day was from OOL and that was VA but weather was terrible.

 

[dajop]

The local airlines and Qantas in particular manage high frequency routes such as SYD-MEL/BNE quite well.

They do quite well as Australia is an extremely simple network for all carriers and most pax travelling between major domestic airports will be on non-stops. Main hubbing of pax is DOM-INTL and to/from Q400's and ATRs operating regional flight, generally you wouldn't expect someone to travel say BNE-ADL-MEL, whereas in the US sort of connection would not be uncommon. Also we have 3 airports which service >10m pax per year. In the US there are 35.

 

[burmans]

The local airlines and Qantas in particular manage high frequency routes such as SYD-MEL/BNE quite well.

I'm not quite sure of your point, Australia is a relatively small market with basically three high volume routes, US probably has in the order of 100+ (if not greater) routes with similar volumes, comparing SYD-MEL with America seems extremely simplistic at best.

And for me at least, making simplistic comparisons is the antithesis of intelligent behavior, which we seem to be expecting of the airlines. If we expect it of them, we should also apply similar expectation on ourselves and our own commentary.

 

[JohnK]

I'm not quite sure of your point, Australia is a relatively small market with basically three high volume routes, US probably has in the order of 100+ (if not greater) routes with similar volumes, comparing SYD-MEL with America seems extremely simplistic at best.

Why wouldn't comparing SYD-MEL be the same as comparing ORD-SDF? Yes volumes in the USA are higher but these are spread amongst the major airlines and even some of the LCCs and surely they have more staff than our local airlines have to manage disruptions.

 

[defurax]

I'm not quite sure of your point, Australia is a relatively small market with basically three high volume routes, US probably has in the order of 100+ (if not greater) routes with similar volumes, comparing SYD-MEL with America seems extremely simplistic at best.

And for me at least, making simplistic comparisons is the antithesis of intelligent behavior, which we seem to be expecting of the airlines. If we expect it of them, we should also apply similar expectation on ourselves and our own commentary.

The US doesn't have a single dom route with the volume of Australia busiest 2 routes. Even looking at the top 10 it's not that different. I agree that there are more potential city pairs in the US, but purely based on high volume route the US is not a leader.

[h=3]United States (September 2014 - August 2015)[edit][/h]Busiest air routes by city pairs within the United States [SUP][12][/SUP]

Rank	City 1	City 2	Passengers (Sep 2014-Aug 2015)
1	Chicago, IL (Metro Area)	New York City, NY (Metro Area)	4,020,000
2	Los Angeles, CA (Metro Area)	San Francisco, CA (Metro Area)	3,660,000
3	Los Angeles, CA (Metro Area)	New York City, NY (Metro Area)	3,420,000
4	Chicago, IL (Metro Area)	Los Angeles, CA (Metro Area)	3,010,000
5	Miami, FL (Metro Area)	New York City, NY (Metro Area)	2,750,000
6	Atlanta, GA (Metro Area)	Chicago, IL (Metro Area)	2,720,000
7	Chicago, IL (Metro Area)	Minneapolis, MN (Metro Area)	2,720,000
8	Atlanta, GA (Metro Area)	New York City, NY (Metro Area)	2,600,000
9	Atlanta, GA (Metro Area)	Orlando, FL (Metro Area)	2,620,000
10	Chicago, IL (Metro Area)	Washington, DC (Metro Area)	2,620,000

[h=3]Australia (2015)[edit][/h]See also: List of the busiest air routes in Australia by passenger traffic
Busiest domestic air routes in Australia[SUP][13][/SUP] (all passengers including connecting)

Rank	Airport 1	Airport 2	Passengers (2015)
1	Melbourne	Sydney	8,613,400
2	Brisbane	Sydney	4,476,200
3	Brisbane	Melbourne	3,353,800
4	Gold Coast	Sydney	2,618,300
5	Adelaide	Melbourne	2,311,000
6	Melbourne	Perth	2,138,900
7	Adelaide	Sydney	1,831,500
8	Gold Coast	Melbourne	1,812,300
9	Perth	Sydney	1,760,900
10	Melbourne	Hobart	1,493,600

 

[burmans]

The US doesn't have a single dom route with the volume of Australia busiest 2 routes. Even looking at the top 10 it's not that different. I agree that there are more potential city pairs in the US, but purely based on high volume route the US is not a leader.

Which would be a totally valid counter argument if I had been arguing about the size of a single route in the US. But I wasn't, I was making an argument for the complexity of the US system. Comparing SYD - MEL with the US is like comparing a single shuttle bus route with an entire cities bus system. A shuttle bus/plane route is the easiest possible system to manage. Someone misses (or is removed from) that bus/flight it's a simple thing to resolve, there's another one coming in fifteen minutes. Much harder on lower volume routes if there are fewer buses or flights. My argument is about a complex system vs a simple one.

 

[dajop]

Why wouldn't comparing SYD-MEL be the same as comparing ORD-SDF? Yes volumes in the USA are higher but these are spread amongst the major airlines and even some of the LCCs and surely they have more staff than our local airlines have to manage disruptions.

ORD-SDF is but one of 100+ routes out of ORD that UA has, to share the staff amongst. Also most pax on ORD-SDF are probably not originating in Chicago, but instead travelling from elsewhere, probably the opposite ratio of connecting vs Origin/Departure traffic on SYD-MEL. And ORD-SDF has 9 flights a day, vs 9 flights an hour (at some times of the day) SYD-MEL.

Just a few differences! The US network is incredibly complex, the Australian network is incredibly simple.

 

[Ikara]

Just a few differences! The US network is incredibly complex, the Australian network is incredibly simple.

And might I say "Vive la difference"!