YOU, sir, was the one who called me out on the carpet. I still proved you were WRONG and yet you STILL grasp at straws. "Give me links." Well, Bob did your work for you so stop acting like a sniveling child and just say "I was WRONG." It's not so bad, Butch. You ought to give it a try every now and then.

Actually, Jim, on Delta if you check in online or at a kiosk and the flight you're checking in for is overbooked you will be given the option of an earlier or later flight at no additional cost. It's happened to me before but I usually stick with the overbooked flight and volunteer my seat in exchange for a voucher. Of course we all know those vouchers are worthless and you can never use them anyway! :D

Wow, what a great offer. Delta seem to have really changed...

Just to clarify, you have booked a specific flight with Delta and they have agreed the contract. You get to the airport and Delta tells you they are going to renege on the contract, but offer you alternative flights at no cost to you. That to you is a good offer?

How are they reneging on the contract. The will still get you to your destination and in some cases earlier than originally scheduled. You are simply given the option of an alternate flight without any fee to change or you can stick with the original flight you had. There's no broken contract here. You are sounding like a Barrister ew once know from Trinidad! :rolleyes:

If the flight is overbooked and the passengers who have a contract for a seat turn up, Delta will renege on the contract. However, no such option exists for the passenger.

I have been to Trinidad & Tobago.. it is quite nice.

(jim) haha yeah i know Singapore Airlines lost money, but than again who hasnt?

At least with them you don't need to worry about many of the problems with other airlines, such as rude flight attendants, "drunk" employees, etc

If you check in for the flight in a timely manner then overbooking shouldn't be an issue. It's the people who refuse to check in online and show up 35 minutes before departure to check in that encounter issues with possibly being denied boarding involuntarily but really when they don't take the responsibility to be at the airport on time then they deserve what they get!

You keep saying that overbooking should not be allowed however if that were to come to pass then fares would go up. We hear all the time of people fighting tooth and nail to get back a $15 baggage fee so how do you think the average traveler would react to a $50 fare hike when the airlines are no longer allowed to overbook?

Personally the most a flight I've been on has been oversold by is 12 and that was under extenuating circumstances. It's usually only by a few and sometimes I'll get on the list and they won't even need my seat since there were enough no-shows to offset the overbooking.

PHXFlyer wrote:

they won't even need my seat since there were enough no-shows to offset the overbooking.

How would a non-airline employee know this? Indeed, I would think the only people that would know this would be the gate staff working the given flight. I've never heard of an announcement, along the lines of: Attention in the boarding area. Since there were enough no-shows we will not be bumping anyone.

This just sounds like you are, or were, an airline employee. You have the "Airline Sympathizer" label so, really, whether you are, or not, doesn't matter. It's just that on, at least, one occasion you denied you are, or ever were, an airline employee.

Still trying to twist every word I post.

I was talking about when I'm flying and they are soliciting volunteers because the flight is over-sold. Why don't you hang out on FlyerTalk for a bit. You'll learn a lot about the ins-and outs of how fares work, how upgrades work, how to tell if a flight might be overbooked even before getting to the airport, etc. I wish you would get off this obsession you seem to have.

Overbooking is tantamount to fraud. They are selling things they simply don't have available to sell.

Okay, Jim. Let's play Jim owns an airline. You have one aircraft that makes 6 trips a day. After several years of flying that same aircraft at the same times of day on the same route you have historical data to support that on average 10 people are a no-show for every single flight. Are you really going to fly the plane with an average of 10 empty seats per trip? To do so you would have to make fares non-changeable, or if they were changeable charge a hefty penalty to do so since you lost revenue on the original ticketed flight. Either that or raise the fares for everyone else who did show up to make up the revenue on the empty seats from the no-shows. Or simply take your chances and trust your historical data and allow each flight to be overbooked by 10 seats knowing that 10 people probably won't show up or cancel at the last-minute.

Phx, this is an outdated argument. In the past, you could argue that when tickets were more flexible, there was a case for over-selling, as the deal was flexible both ways. The passenger could no show, but the ticket retained it's value and the customer could use it on another flight. Now, the vast majority of tickets sold are non refundable and "no showing" for a flight results in a cancellation of the ticket.

How is the airline disadvantaged by flying with empty seats? The airline has sold those seats. They have the revenue, if the passenger "no shows" they still get the money.

I have a compromise suggestion. Let's assume that 20% of passengers travelling on a flexible ticket "no show". I suggest we have a regulation that airlines can only oversell seats by 20% of the passengers on that flight who are travelling on a fully refundable ticket.

So, on a 100 seat aircraft, lets say that 10 seats are booked using fully refundable tickets. The airline could oversell by 2 seats.

Btw.. there are airlines in the world which never oversell. Some of them are highly profitable... the ability to oversell seats and profitability are not linked.

Um, maybe because when the plane left he was sitting on it. If you volunteer and get put on the list, but still fly on the plane, that's pretty simple 1+1 = 2 kind of math.


Not really true. The no-show = lost ticket rule has been around for many years. Also there are plenty of times that a person is a no show for a flight because they checked in late, or the missed a connection. If they check in late, the airline doesn't normally forfeit the ticket (there are some exceptions such as Ryanair and the likes, but then again, look at them as a whole - 'nuff said)

Wrong. The contract stats that there is a possibility of a flight being oversold, and what will the airline do if that happens. Since this is stated in the terms, there is no reneging on the contract.

Some of them are profitable. And, with a very few exceptions those are also pricier airlines (due to the routes they fly.)

Well this is from the "Ryanair" passenger charter

Whether you can believe a word that O'Leary says is another matter..but one thing is sure. Ryanair are not a "pricier" airline...

But Jetliner... the fact that airlines put "get out of jail free" clauses in their contract is exactly my point. Airlines operate the most outregeously one sided contracts which are unfair and abusive, and pay politicians millions to keep their legal protection to allow them to do so...

This makes my point.. if a customer is late, the ticket is forfeited, because the timings on the contract are totally binding on the customer. If the airline choose to oversell, then the airline has no responsiblity to the customer, because the timings are not binding on the airline and form no part of the contract. Because all the airlines put this abusive text into their contracts, customers who do not agree are prohibited from accessing a key public transport service. Meanwhile, their taxes are used to support the infrastructure... it is wrong and re-regulation is the only way this will be sorted.

Jim, if the airline oversells their flights, then they have EVERY obligation to the customer. Most if not all airlines, have within their contract what's to be done if a person is in an oversell situation. They have to rebook them on a flight, they have to be given a hotel (if necessary or ground transportation), and they have to give cash compensation maximum $800. So in fact the airlines have EVERY responsibilty to the customer. While I don't agree with everything in an airlines contract, I do agree with this one, in fact I think the amount should be increased so that maybe airlines won't overbook so often.

And I will add that the fact that the airlines must compensate those who are involuntary denied boarding is an incentive not to overbook by too many people. This is why they keep historical data on flights and set a limit on the number of tickets they will sell for a specific flight. If you were to listen to some "pro-consumer" people on this board you would think that the airlines regularly sell 300 tickets on a 150 seat aircraft. That just doesn't happen. In my experiemce when I have been informed of how many a flight I am on has been oversold by the number is almost always in the single digits. And again (and hopefully this time without snarky accusations) I will relate to you that many times I have put my name on the list because an hour before departure the flight is in an over-sold status only to end up being boarded because of no-shows. The vast majority of the time the system works. Just read the DOT numbers. Airlines are required to report the number of passengers they "bump" every quarter.

Thanks Bob, but we only slightly disagree. You think airlines should be fined more for overbooking as a disincentive. I think it should be banned altogether.

Phx..we will never agree on this. When you finally get round to admitting you like me and invite me to Madison Square Garden to see Rufus Wainwright live, I would be mightly ****** off to get there and be told "sorry, we oversell so many seats because people don't turn up. Here is a ticket to see Britney Spears tomorrow instead".

It is not acceptable..plain and simple.

Bad analogy. You would not only get to see Rufus Wainwright (albeit the next show, not the next day normally) you would also be entitled to back stage passes. You would not be given tickets to another performer (although I wouldn't mind seeing Miss Spears in a private setting)

My point is you still get to your final destination, a bit later, with compensation.

Fat lot of good that will do you... if you were going to a wedding, christening, funeral, meeting, etc... (the usual litany of important things that people travel for).

Is Britney your type? I would have thought Hyori Lee was more you thing!:rolleyes:

jim jim jim, re-regulation will NOT solve the cures of the airline industry, its an industry that no matter what will be flawed and people will not ever be satisfied with it

re-regulation would create more of a monopoly than deregulation, it would give the strong more and the weak less, the empolyees will be the same and you will get the same responses from them (rude FA, unhelpful disrespectful check-in agents, so on) the policies and rules may change but even with regulation will still be in favor of the airlines, and wont improve anything, theres a bunch more

total de-reg and regulation are not the way too go, however i believe everyone agress that things need to change, but there are losses either way you go and the initial step may be a big one that will only create more havoc and chaos which will disrupt everything


yeah we all know that there are lobbyists (ehat industry doesn't) and they pay politiceans, but i believe that there are smart politiceans for the most part that see this and will try to do something about it..........granted that the politiceans aren't from here in nj or from illinois (i believe i heard a stat that your twice as likely to be caught in a scandle in office that could have them in jail than a murderer being caught)

on a side note, i hear that continental, american and delta are having peak day travel fees and may think about adding days to them (for example $50 the day after the superbowl)

Mars wrote...

re-regulation will NOT solve the (ills) cures of the airline industry

First, the only way there will be any meaningful reform in the domestic airline industry is through some catastrophic event possibly involving deaths or injuries. Otherwise I don't think there is the will, in Congress, to act.

The Air Transport Association needs to abandon its fantasy that the status quo can be sustained until such time (5 to 10 years, or more?) as a major overhaul of the air traffic control system is complete. Some of the nation's major airports, such as New York--LaGuardia and Atlanta, simply have too many flights crammed into time frames that are too short. The government needs to ration flights while insuring that all affected airlines bear the "pain" proportionately. Within such a reform mechinism the practice of gates being the "property" of a given airline would need to be abolished. Obviously the airlines would have to be compensated, through tax brakes or otherwise, for such a government "taking."

The public needs to understand, and accept, that meaningful airline reform will be a "back to the future" experience. $75 fares, from New York to Orlando, will be history and Greyhound will, once again, become the choice of those who can't afford the increased air fares. At a minimum, those who want to fly on the cheap would be relegated to using secondary airports and the inconvenience of extended ground transportation to and from.

mars.. your views are little surprising from someone who lauds Singapore. Singapore is one of the most regulated places on earth. So much so, even the press is regulated.

How regulation creates monopolies I don't know. Will regulation of the financial services industry create monopolies? There are loads of industries out there which are regulated.. and they are not monopolies.

Passing a regulation which prohibits overselling of seats. If they are worried about empty seats, they can have a concession. They can sell cheap "standby" seats which are released 15 minutes before departure.

Some hotels and car rental agencies overbook as well. Do you propose regulating those industries? Regulation isn't the answer to everything and overbooking in the airline industry isn't as big a problem as you make it out to be.