“No customer will be denied boarding until we have asked for others to volunteer”

The real problem is deeper and more insidious. The airline is continuing to sell ultra high price walk up fares even after the flight checks in full. The know that the $250 voucher has very little marginal cost to them, and is far less than the price last full fare tickets sold. Until the airlines are forced to compensate passengers denied boarding at something close to the cost of a full fare ticket, it will always be in the airlines economic best interest to overbook with full fare passengers and bump advance purchase passengers.

People can’t have everything they want, and this is a situation where they want everything: low fares, flexible tickets, and no overbooking. It just won’t happen and nor should it. I’d say you can pick two of the three.

On just about any ticket you buy, you’re allowed to make a change to your flight any time prior to departure for a fee. People do this all the time and enjoy having the flexibility. The problem is that the airline will be left with an empty seat if the passenger changes at the last minute, and that seat on that flight is gone forever. Airlines keep very good records of no-show probabilities and that’s how they determine how much they overbook. Of course, that’s not a perfect method, so they will go over and under on a regular basis. Still, the extra revenue generated makes it worthwhile and it helps keep prices lower.

If airlines stop overbooking, fares will go up. Think about all the revenue pressures they face right now, especially with $100 a barrel oil. If they have to sell a handful fewer seats on every flight, they’re going to need to make up for that loss of revenue somehow. Fares will go up.

There is an alternative. If tickets are completely unchangeable, then when someone reserves a seat, it’s his regardless of whether it gets used or not. If you don’t fly, sorry, you lose your money. But then the airlines don’t care if you show up or not, because they get their money anyway. Even under this scenario, they’ll lose change fee revenue so fares might still need to go up.

You can use the JetBlue example if you’d like, but they’ve been looking for more revenue as well. If they start to see more business travel onboard, I wouldn’t be shocked to see them start overbooking.

Since he was involuntarily denied boarding, could the customer have requested a refund of his tickets in cash (instead of accepting the flight voucher he ultimately accepted)?

My understanding of the bump process is that airlines used to love “voluntary bumps”, and were deathly afraid of “involuntary bumps”.

Involuntary bumps must be reported to FAA, and used to look very bad on an airline’s record, so they were willing to offer bigger and bigger perks until they got the needed voluntary bumps, which did not get reported and were not a black mark. (after all, the customer volunteered, right?!)

These days, with so much bad news about airline service, food, lost baggage, short legroom, ontime records, etc, etc, airlines simply don’t care if they have to report involuntary bumps anymore. Its just a tiny blip on the radar of bad news, and the FAA doesn’t take it seriously anymore. As a result, they frequently offer token amounts, like $250, then commence with the involuntary bumping.

If you want to solve the problem, involuntary bumping needs to be made a serious travel sin again. Consequential damages might be one way to do this. Serious fines paid to the FAA might be another. But as long as there are no serious repercussions for involuntary bumping, it will increase, and the perks of voluntary bumps that travelers like me love, will disappear.

Why should someone who buys their ticket in advance to save a little money be treated as though the price they paid makes them second-class compared to others who’ve paid full fare.

David H. . . because money talks – it always has.

MarkA – I hope those were confirmed space tickets and not space available . . . .the airlines have a nasty habit of giving voluntary bumps space available.

I have, when I have time, ALWAYS walked up to the gate agent and made the follwing offer -when I have 2 or 3 seats available and there is a nonstop or some better flight to my destination . ..

“I have three seats and will accept your offer on one condition, confirmed first class seats on Flt XXX. ”

If they need more than three then they want my 3 seats which are usually together. They will jump through hoops to a) not raise the price of the seat auction and b) accommodate my first class request because it costs them zero.

When I lived in LA and the flights to LA were ALWAYS overbooked, and there were flt ops usually every 90 minutes or so to LA, well, I never made much of a sacrifice and I got to fly F when it was something.

Now I live in a marginal market in the northeast and fly out of BDL. Almost EVERY flight to a hub is a regional jet or has had first class removed. So, its kinda hard to make it work now.

I don’t see anything wrong with overselling. I think that it’s a proper and valuable business tool. i think we are confusing the legitimate business procedure of overselling with the problematic procedure of involuntary bumping.

The solution is to simply prohibit involuntary bumping, or create huge disincentives for an airline to involuntarily bump anyone who has complied with the check-in requirement.

That way the airline will be forced to sweeten its voluntary bumping deal until a sufficient number of passengers are happy to be bumped.

So simple.

Like many others, I always take the voluntary bump if my schedule can accomodate it (I fly 4-5 flights a week due to work)— only take offers of money do not take the ticket vouchers as you will more than likely NEVER be able to redeem them due to the numerous restrictions.

My absolutely worst bumping experience was on US Air PHL to PHX. The flight was oversold and the gate agent asked for volunteers. I was the first one in line to offer my seat. She took my boarding pass wrote my name down and gave me the boarding pass back. She then asked me to step aside but remain near the counter and so I did… never once leaving her sight. She boarded the flight. I asked half way through the boarding process (no other passengers were around) if she was going to need my seat (I’m used to the bumping process and have always been given an answer prior to boarding). She told me to wait and she would let me know.

Well, the flight boarded… completely. She was finishing printing the manifest and I asked her again if she needed my seat. She looked at me and said “You should have already borded the airplane now I will have to reprint the manifest.” Not in the mood for a confrontation, I simply boarded.

Once I took my seat, the gate agent came on board the plane, involuntarily bumped a passenger in coach so that a F/A could reposition.

So, they had a volunteer and still involuntarily bumped someone.

i had one somewhat pleasant “involuntary” bumping experience…
i was flying internationally and when arriving for my flight was told that I was volunteered to move to another flight – one that departed two hours later than my original flight. however, this flight was non-stop as opposed to the other which included a 4 hour layover. This allowed me to arrive at my destination in los angeles with more time to clear customs and actually catch my connecting flight (with the option of going standy on one a few hours earlier), which would have been an extremely close call had i been on the original flight. It did create a slight hassle in that I had to communicate the change in arrangements to family on the other end so they knew when i would actually be arriving, but that was small compared to the quicker arrival at my final destination.

i will add however, that it would have been nice to be “asked” not “informed” as it did create some hassle but at least it was an overall positive experience.

I work for US Airways, and I can tell you this: US Airways flights are always oversold. They don’t care how many seats are available, they sell as much as 180 tickets for a 140 seater. US Airways reduced the Ticket price by 40% from 2000. They could double the ticket prices and solve the “always oversold” situation, but they chose not to do so. They loose thousands of dollars on every flight, considering the fuel price. Every normal business man would adjust the price of their product to avoid losses, specialy since there is more clients willing to buy the product than product availability. Not US Airways. They decided to cut down on the flights. They will cancel 20% of their oversold flights, to save 20% on their daily losses. I could put my 8-year old into charge of US Airways, and he could probably solve the problem without my help within 2 weeks. I am wondering how much the managers make for their retarded plans to save the Airline.

I remember encountering a similar event when flying back home. It was on a recent United Airlines trip and the flight was oversold. United began asking for volunteers to give up their seat in exchange for some amount in voucher, a 3 night hotel stay, and a flight on January 2 (crummy deal really). When I lined up to board, a gate agent called my last name and asked me to come to the front desk. I refused to do so because I didn’t want to get bumped, so I ignored it which was my response for saying no to the supposed bump. After a good 20 minutes of wondering whether the gate agent would come on board and deny me boarding, the plane pushed from the gate. To this day, I have no idea whether that call was for bumping or a free upgrade to economy plus. I don’t think I wanted to find out the hard way.

So far, experienced flyers have favored dollars-off vouchers over free-trip vouchers especially when the former can be used for booking anytime and the latter have restrictions on what flights and seat categories they can be used with.

You can (and I often do) offer to volunteer even before the gate agent asks for volunteers, of course asking in advance what compensation would be offered before handing over your boarding pass.