4 ms·

I can't wrap my head around how everyone is like "Yeah, overbooking happens, that's just the way it is". Why the hell is it legal? If I booked two clients on th

I can't wrap my head around how everyone is like "Yeah, overbooking happens, that's just the way it is". Why the hell is it legal? If I booked two clients on the same timeslot, collected cash from them in advance and then stood one up and offered him a fucking coupon, I'd have a court case opened against me the next day and I'd never find a client in the same city again. Why the hell do airlines still get away with it in the age of online payments?

megablast 10y ago
This wasn't overbooking, as was already said. And overbooking is legal because it is not illegal. And when you have 2% of your passengers not turning up on every flight, and flight margins of <$100 profit per plane (during the worst times), not per passenger, you need to overbook.
- flukus 10y ago
  > And when you have 2% of your passengers not turning up on every flight Why is that a problem? They've paid for a service and not used it.
  - plafl 10y ago
    It is nevertheless a wasted resource that could be used better. Indirectly it will cause all tickets fares to fall down which will benefit the people that actually flies. I'm not against overbooking but forcefully expelling a passenger is just another step in the direction of making taking an airplane just such a shitty experience. The correct, common sense, ethical and business savvy way to proceed would have been to start bidding until some passengers sold back their tickets. That would have been fair instead of some fixed compensation that doesn't take into account all kinds of inconveniences you will suffer because of losing your flight. I try to avoid taking airplanes nowadays which is quite sad considering I'm an aerospace engineer. My only positive thought is that airports are a nice contained experiment everybody is forced to watch of what happens to people when there is a power imbalance, even if you live in a democracy.
    - flukus 10y ago
      The following may not apply in other places as it does in Australia, so correct me if I'm wrong. Airlines don't care about unused seats, if they did we'd have last minute rates like we do for hotels. Hotels know it's better to have someone pay $20 a night than to have their capacity go unused at $50 so they'll drop the price for booking a day or two in advance. Airlines do the opposite, they charge more for booking late.
      - dlubarov 10y ago
        It's just a form of price discrimination. Early bookers are usually price-sensitive individuals. They're prepared to shop around, or even forgo the trip if it's too expensive. Late bookers are mostly corporate customers or price-insensitive individuals. So airlines make the most revenue by setting prices low early on, and higher toward the flight date. They certainly care about unused seats, but the revenue from expensive last-minute bookings normally outweighs the revenue they would get from filling all remaining seats at a discounted price. They do their best to minimize unused seats by getting the prices right early on, and adjusting based on observed demand. But at a certain point, it makes sense to raise prices even if it's highly likely that there will be unused seats.
  - schmookeeg 10y ago
    Refundable tickets make it a problem.
- slowmotiony 10y ago
  Right, I "just need" to overbook because some of my clients decide not to show up for things PAID IN ADVANCE. This is exactly the mentality I mentioned in my original post.
flukus 10y ago
I think it comes from the type of people that think law and morality are the same, that breaking the law is immoral and that you are acting morally as long as you are within the letter of the law.

megablast 10y ago

This wasn't overbooking, as was already said. And overbooking is legal because it is not illegal. And when you have 2% of your passengers not turning up on every flight, and flight margins of <$100 profit per plane (during the worst times), not per passenger, you need to overbook.

flukus 10y ago
> And when you have 2% of your passengers not turning up on every flight Why is that a problem? They've paid for a service and not used it.
- plafl 10y ago
  It is nevertheless a wasted resource that could be used better. Indirectly it will cause all tickets fares to fall down which will benefit the people that actually flies. I'm not against overbooking but forcefully expelling a passenger is just another step in the direction of making taking an airplane just such a shitty experience. The correct, common sense, ethical and business savvy way to proceed would have been to start bidding until some passengers sold back their tickets. That would have been fair instead of some fixed compensation that doesn't take into account all kinds of inconveniences you will suffer because of losing your flight. I try to avoid taking airplanes nowadays which is quite sad considering I'm an aerospace engineer. My only positive thought is that airports are a nice contained experiment everybody is forced to watch of what happens to people when there is a power imbalance, even if you live in a democracy.
  - flukus 10y ago
    The following may not apply in other places as it does in Australia, so correct me if I'm wrong. Airlines don't care about unused seats, if they did we'd have last minute rates like we do for hotels. Hotels know it's better to have someone pay $20 a night than to have their capacity go unused at $50 so they'll drop the price for booking a day or two in advance. Airlines do the opposite, they charge more for booking late.
    - dlubarov 10y ago
      It's just a form of price discrimination. Early bookers are usually price-sensitive individuals. They're prepared to shop around, or even forgo the trip if it's too expensive. Late bookers are mostly corporate customers or price-insensitive individuals. So airlines make the most revenue by setting prices low early on, and higher toward the flight date. They certainly care about unused seats, but the revenue from expensive last-minute bookings normally outweighs the revenue they would get from filling all remaining seats at a discounted price. They do their best to minimize unused seats by getting the prices right early on, and adjusting based on observed demand. But at a certain point, it makes sense to raise prices even if it's highly likely that there will be unused seats.
- schmookeeg 10y ago
  Refundable tickets make it a problem.
slowmotiony 10y ago
Right, I "just need" to overbook because some of my clients decide not to show up for things PAID IN ADVANCE. This is exactly the mentality I mentioned in my original post.

flukus 10y ago

I think it comes from the type of people that think law and morality are the same, that breaking the law is immoral and that you are acting morally as long as you are within the letter of the law.