Slashdot Mirror
Why Do Airlines Overbook? (bbc.com)
From a report on BBC: A common overbooking problem on a United Airlines flight on Sunday ended with a man being bloodied and dragged from his seat and an already troubled airline earning more bad press. How did it all go so wrong? Overbooking on flights happens all the time. Empty seats cost airlines money, so they offset the number of passengers who miss flights by selling too many tickets. In this case, the problem arose because United decided at the last minute to fly four members of staff to a connection point and needed to bump four passengers to make way for them. When there's an overbooking issue the first step is to offer an inducement to the passengers to take a later flight. [...] Of the 613 million people who flew on major US carriers in 2015, 46,000 were involuntarily denied boarding, according to data from the Department of Transportation -- less than 0.008%.
Overbooking incidents are resolved at check-in counters. This is an incident of someone being removed from a plane to make way for employees. Not only is this not overbooking, but it's also a mindbogglingly dickish move by an airline to de-board someone already sitting and expecting to reach their destination, even more dickish that it wasn't voluntary at all.
I really wish I could boycot United, but as have already done so for years there's not much more I can do. Frankly these types of incidents only seem to happen with one carrier over and over again.
Last time I checked in at a KLM service desk they told me they were overbooked and they gave me the choice of flying 30min later and paid me €200 for my troubles. Quite a different response then "these people will need to get off the plane to make space for an employee of ours".
United should be fined hugely for this, the four removed should sue. The staff involved fired, the execs making that policy fired.
But nothing will happen, i normally fly them, but will look elsewhere.
Yes and it seems many others here are blindly commenting and don't understand what actually happened. This wasn't an overbooking scenario. This was a scenario where passengers had been cleared, boarded and seated. Then another flight crew needed to board to make a flight for the next day. No one volunteered, so they played Hunger Games with the passengers. One of the ones selected was a Dr that had patients to see in the morning and thus his refusal.
United Airlines then turned in to President Snow and had a 69 year old man beaten and drug, yes, drug, (not carried as some outfits want to say), off the plane over it.
United could have easily booked this crew later or sent them by other means. They chose to violently remove a 69 year old man like he was brandishing a weapon or threatening people.
So, people carrying on about overbooking can get bent as that's not what happened. This wasn't denial of boarding. It was violent eviction.
United is going to end up paying for this event, one way or another.
The Aviation Security officer has already been placed on leave and his outfit as publicly stated his actions were not in line with their policy (re: he's f*cked).
Now it's on to see how UA is going to handle this mess.
It should be noted that airlines will only oversbook a non-refundable seat/ticket.
A successful overbook is one where a seat is sold to two people and one of them does not show up. In this situation, the seat is paid for twice but only used once. This is free money for the airlines.
An unsuccessful overbook is where a seat is sold twice and they both show up. The second person to check in is not assigned a seat number and told they will get one at the gate. The airline then waits to see if another seat becomes available.
They play a very careful game with this. They have to make sure the number of successful "free money" overbooks exceeds the cost of paying out incentives for voluntary givebacks.
In the case of involuntary givebacks, they also weigh the cost of losing goodwill and reputation.
All of this having been said, the United flight earlier this week was not overbooked. United had a scheduling snafu and needed to move a crew. The cost of not moving that crew was the opportunity cost of a cancelled flight, so there was NO CHOICE but to move the crew. They just made a poor "random" choice of who to boot from the flight involuntarily. In addition to willfully interfering with the rendering of medical care, they also willfully endangered the lives of any of the Doctor's patients who were at risk without his care.
The passenger should have notified the airline he was a doctor at check in, because airlines will not remove a doctor from a flight if they know ahead of time.
Actually, TFA is a bit off if they're referring to the United Airlines incident, since it wasn't simple overbooking (which would mean passengers would be denied at the gate). In that case it was four UA aircrew that needed to get a flight at the last minute, and UA decided that they needed someone to be voluntold off the plane itself.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
The airline was offered $400 for each volunteer to give up their seat. After there were no takers, they upped it to $800. I assume they mean $800 + a ticket refund. There are regulations in place that increase the dollar value the longer the passenger has to wait for another flight. But at that point, I have to ask, "Couldn't the airline just send the employees to the destination using ANY OTHER MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION for that much money?"
It looks like there actually is a maximum ($1,350).
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cf...
There is nothing to stop an airline paying more compensation. Take this case:
http://heelsfirsttravel.boardi...
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
It wasn't for a passenger. It was for 4 UA employees that needed a last minute flight somewhere.
The real question is why we let corporations use the government to enforece rules they set. In this case whe have a company using jackbooted thugs, paid for by your taxes, to abuse your peer. This is just another illustration of where power really lies. This is not a democracy. It is a corporate oligarchy.
Silence is a state of mime.