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%.
They all wanna do it but they don't wanna be caught doing it.
That's the beginning and the end of this conversation.
The only way to get airlines to stop doing it is to make it unprofitable to do so either through fines and/or regulations which increase the compensation for those bumped from flights to the point where it's not worth it to do.
It may be less than 0.008% but it's still forty six thousand human beings.
#DeleteFacebook
Flying is an awful experience these days because market drives price optimization above anything else. A lot of it is driven by "find cheapest" aggregators and "you must fly cheapest" corporate policies. This is actually not in the best interest of consumers. Actually, vast majority of consumers would be better off with slightly more expensive but consumer-focused service.
Security theater at the airports, outrageous fees, cramped seats, inadequate cleaning between flights. Why would anyone fly unless they absolutely had to?
an Overbooking issue.
If you want to talk about Airlines feeling they can manhandle passengers out of their seats - great, I think it needs to be discussed so airlines understand that wasn't acceptable.
But, I think everybody here understands why airlines overbook, so don't bother explaining.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
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.
And yet they don't refund the tickets for the people who don't show up. What other industry is allowed to sell commodities twice? Usually that is considered fraud....
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.
"Empty seats cost airlines money" not if those seats are already paid for. This total BS. If the seat is paid for then less weight saves them money. Overbooking is pure greed. They know the average percentage of people who will miss the flight and they overbook to make more money but sometimes the people do not miss the flight and they do not have enough seats. It is pure greed and lies. If I have paid for a seat it should not be theirs to sell again as what they normally do is just get more strict about the check in time to reject people if they are going to have a problem. You arrive at check in a minute late (I was rejected 3 minutes late once) and they get hard arsed because they already have someone sitting in your seat. They have sold it and made money from something they had already sold to you.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
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 fair and most capitalist thing to do would be for the airline to simply have an in-cabin auction for your seat - have the captain announce higher and higher prices for your seat, and the first four call buttons to get pressed win the auction. (first N call buttons if a different number of seats than 4 are needed)
Thrown in a business class upgrade and I'm sure it wouldn't take long to get a few empty economy seats, and everyone's happy.
When I read a story like this on Slashdot, I expect to see comments by people who are insightful enough to understand the mathematics of booking passengers on flights.
I also enjoy seeing ACs post stupid comments so I can feel superior to them.
And the law actually requires a minimum of $1,350 refund for the seat if forced off. The guy was still in the right to refuse to give up his seat at any price lower than that, and the Chicago police helped United Airlines violate Federal Law.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I've never flown standby, so I'm not completely sure how it works, but I think it's a model that makes more sense.
Let's say a plane has 100 seats. The airline knows on average there will be 4% no-shows. What if, instead of selling 104 tickets at full-price, they sold 100 tickets at full-price, and 4 at a discount? Those people with the discounted tickets would usually get to fly, but would understand they might get bumped.
They were crew for a flight that would be cancelled if they weren't there. What this is, in addition to a PR foulup, is a logistics screwup. The crew should have been booked on a flight already.
Best Slashdot Co
And the law actually requires a minimum of $1,350 refund for the seat if forced off.
Maximum is 4x the cost of seat or 1350
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Plus, to add insult to injury, they branded him a "disruptive" passenger after the fact to justify it. Until a computer decreed he should be removed and he refused (with good reason), he could not be described as such.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
Clearly UA had no idea that UA staff were going to be needed to fly on a UA flight down to another airport in order to work on a scheduled UA flight.
The "other means" would have cost the airline actual cash, the $1,000 airline credit/seat is essentially free.
It is a four hour drive (Chicago to Kentucky) - United should have hired a stretch limo to drive them the four hours to the KY airport, then the four hour return drive empty for less than $1,000.
Ken
While a lot of what you said is correct, it appears that flight 3411 is actually a Republic Airline flight. And really, it appears it's not so much a mis-labeling as it is outsourcing/contracting. United is correct in sharing the blame for this in choosing to partner with them.
For 4000 dollars, they could have put all 4 employees on a chartered turboprop and had them in Louisville in 90 minutes.
I disagree that individual customers actually "want" what you describe and I highly doubt that when asked directly would make such choices. For example, I don't anticipate anyone would accept $5 discount to volunteer to sit in a cramped seat for any flight longer than an hour.
In this case emergence and not consumer choices that dictate the outcome. It is clearly against preferences of everyone who participates in flying. Call it prisoner's dilemma on a grand scale.
Preference for cheapest tickets at the time of purchase is driven by the lack of information or understanding of systemic consequences. As such, this is a case of market failure due to lack of informed choices.
It wasn't for a passenger. It was for 4 UA employees that needed a last minute flight somewhere.
The problem with what happened with United wasn't overbooking. It was how they handled overbooking. They could have taken the seats at the gate for their people and decided who wouldn't board at the gate. But instead they let everyone board, let everyone sit down and THEN pulled out the "we need your seats" thing. THAT's the problem.
Or more specifically A problem because dragging someone out of the plane by their arms is ridiculous. He's not a sack of wheat. There were three dudes there and they couldn't grab his feet?
And that doesn't even touch the extreme escalation of violence visited upon a Doctor who had purchased a ticket and was already seated.
No they did many many things wrong on this flight but overbooking doesn't even come close to being one of the major ones.
Just another second banana
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).
Security and police are just about never f*cked. The first rule of a police state is that you don't throw the police under the bus. They may get bad press but where the rubber meets the road, or perhaps I should say where the baton meets the suspect, they still have free rein. Virtually all suspensions result in a slap on the wrist are are in effect paid vacations.
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.
They keep mentioning he's a doctor as though that gives him more rights. I'm not a doctor, but I'd be just as upset if I were told to get off the plan in such circumstances. Doctor or not, United is in the wrong here.
As for the article, it has a wrong conclusion saying "if you face security then just comply or you get a fat lip". Well, everyone complying is the reason the police shoot unarmed people on the streets, passengers get dragged off the plane after paying full price for the ticket and so on. Compliance is not the way to deal with assholes like United.
We have a simple implied contract:
I give you the amount of money you stipulate as a fare for travel from A to B starting at a specific time.
In the absence of uncontrollable exigent circumstances, you carry me from A to B starting at or very close to that time.
Being kicked off because of a deliberate overbooking policy or a bureacratic screw-up in aircrew accommodation is simple breach of contract.
And it should be up to a civil law proceeding to determine the value of compensation due.
If government has set max compensation (at the ridiculously low levels that they have), that's just evidence of a corrupt government system that works for large corporations via lobbyists. Americans really should fix that.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
It says technically it was in United's right to remove the man. No, there are at least 3 parts of contract law that not only make this illegal, but another part that makes this a criminal offense.
Just because airlines and the TSA constantly break the law, does not make it their right.
Federal courts are constantly towing out FBI cases because of criminal acts FBI officers commit to get evidence.
For some reason airlines, the TSA and private guards that have no more legal power than you, or I are being treated like they are above the law.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
They didn't get 3 volunteers - United is wording it in a misleading way by saying "voluntarily left" the other 3 people did not volunteer, they were told to leave but left without being dragged out.
For 4000 dollars, they could have put all 4 employees on a chartered turboprop and had them in Louisville in 90 minutes.
For the amount of the resulting lawsuit or settlement they could have bought a Gulfstream to fly the 4 employees to anywhere.
Because the definition of overbooking is BOOKING too many passengers on a plane. Those employees weren't BOOKED, they were tossed in because someone screwed up, and the airline wasn't willing to pay up handsomely to just mitigate the issue and move on. They may lose millions for want of a few grand.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
United is proud to offer their new Thunderdome fare class. They divide the cost of one ticket among as many people who dare book it, and then the prospective passengers fight to the death in a steel cage on the tarmac. On the positive side, if you do not get a seat on the plane, they will still allow your remains on the cargo hold as long as you submitted a notarized certificate to United's corporate office three days in advance.
Someone on a reddit thread yesterday said that this happened to them, they were offered $600 to leave the plane. However when they did leave the plane, they discovered that the $600 was not actually CASH money but rather 12 $50 vouchers for air travel that could not be combined and expired one year from the date issued.
So yeah, people assume that this is all cash money being offered to the patrons but i bet it wasnt.
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
250.2a Policy regarding denied boarding. In the event of an oversold flight, every carrier shall ensure that the smallest practicable number of persons holding confirmed reserved space on that flight are denied boarding involuntarily.
Obviously, IANAL, but reading the source code (the CFR), it appears they yanked this guy off to make room for flight crew. Do crew have a confirmed reserved space?
No one except airlines WANTS THEM TO OVERBOOK, because the only entity that overbooking benefits is the carrier. Overbooking does not benefit the customer (no, overbooking does not "help them keep fares low", competition does). The obvious solution in this case was to continue offering higher and higher incentives until they reached the point where people were willing to give up their seats. Dragging a bloody paying passenger off the plane is going to end up costing them far more than just raising the offer until they got enough volunteers.
In this case overbooking wasn't even necessarily the case. The plane was fully loaded when 4 employees showed up and told the gate agent that they needed to be on that plane, because it was the last plane to their destination that day. They weren't booked for the flight, they just showed up and said they needed to be on it. Overbooking doesn't even apply to this case. The problem is how United handled the situation, by deciding to call in the police and drag a paying customer off the plane instead of just offering whatever it took to get 4 people to agree.
This whole whine session is silly.
I'd like to see if you still feel that way if you decide that getting to your destination is worth more than $800 to you and instead the police come on board, bloody your mouth, and drag you off the plane.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
It's the maximum compensation that the government can force them to pay to the complainant if a complaint goes to the government for resolution. They are not prohibited from paying more to avoid a complaint from going that far.
The other three people didn't "take the offer", so much as they didn't refuse the offer and get dragged off of the plane. They weren't given an option; they were ordered to vacate the plane and given a voucher on the way out.
The $800 was offered for volunteers previously and nobody volunteered. These four passengers weren't given a choice.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
those first three people decided not to question their selection to be #REACCOMODATED whilst the last man felt his opportunity cost was much more valuable than waiting an entire day
No, all of them felt the same way about leaving. Only one of them wanted to fight about it. I'm a little conflicted on this issue - the guy who we're all supporting here was clearly in the right, and many people would describe what he did as "sticking up for himself against an abusive company," but he did so at the expense of... how many other people on that plane?
It was a terribly self-centered act, and he's going to be richly rewarded for it. Meanwhile, the other three people who were just as inconvenienced as he was are going to get squat. I fully support standing up against this kind of abusive behavior, but not in this way.