5 ms·

I have a idea. Well, several. 1. Let's stop overbooking in the airline industry. The seats are already prepaid for. Who cares if a passenger shows or not? (It'

by jtrtoo 9y ago

I have a idea. Well, several. 1. Let's stop overbooking in the airline industry. The seats are already prepaid for. Who cares if a passenger shows or not? (It'd be different if they were losing revenue when a passenger doesn't show up; they aren't). 2. Let's take responsibility (the airline) if we fuck up (or an act of gawd enables) a situation where our own staff can't get where to a destination they need to be in per our own scheduling. This means we don't bump customers involuntarily for our fuck-up. If not enough paying customers volunteer so be it: We'll eat the impact of our fuck-up of not properly planning how to get our own staff from point B to point B (whether that means finding an alternative for them to get there, delaying some other flight, whatever). The crux is this entire situation seems to be four distinct matters: - Overbooking (unnecessary) - Staff logistics (contingency plans, accepting consequences) - Involuntary bumping (goes away with addressing the former two matters) - Security / policing efforts for matters that aren't being handled amicably in the moment by a disagreeing party (standard police matter I presume, which has a body of knowledge and skill associated with it which may have been lacking here or needs to be adopted to plane boarding situations)

cgag 9y ago
I might be ok with overbooking if they got rid of involuntary bumping and had to auction off being bumped until someone accepted the price.
- adamson 9y ago
  Imagine the game theory analyses on frequent flyer sites
- markdown 9y ago
  http://www.cbsnews.com/news/delta-offer-10000-to-flyers-give-up-seats/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/delta-offer-10000-to-flyers-give...
- fshaun 9y ago
  I don't think introducing an unbounded liability is the solution to this (or perhaps any) problem. Would this work for 99% of flights? Sure. But it's just asking to be gamed.
  - cgag 9y ago
    You could counter game it by not overbooking. Or start at like 10k and auction down.
Cerium 9y ago
Ending overbooking would end leniency on missed flights. Many airlines allow zero or low cost rebooking for flights missed due to transportation delays "flat tire rules". I think we should just have some transparency on overbooking and limit it by some well known statistical measure.
- qzervaas 9y ago
  But the rebooked seat doesn't displace somebody on the next flight, so what's the actual cost?
  - NeutronBoy 9y ago
    If I miss a flight by say 15 mins, in certain fare classes, the airline will let me reschedule to a later flight at no cost. Which means if they can't resell that seat in 15 mins, they're losing money because that seat is now empty (and they're essentially refunded me the price)
dagw 9y ago
1. Let's stop overbooking in the airline industry. The seats are already prepaid for. Who cares if a passenger shows or not? (It'd be different if they were losing revenue when a passenger doesn't show up; they aren't). At least for business class tickets, if the passenger doesn't show up they have to reimburse or re-book the ticket, so they are losing revenue when a passenger doesn't show up. The obvious answer for bumping passengers is simply an auction. At some price below what it costs to charter a private jet on short notice you will find people willing to give up their seats.
- markdown 9y ago
  > The obvious answer for bumping passengers is simply an auction. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/delta-offer-10000-to-flyers-give-up-seats/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/delta-offer-10000-to-flyers-give...
- ubernostrum 9y ago
  Just like economy class, business-class and first-class tickets come in multiple fare classes, and lower fare classes come with restrictions (such as not being refundable or requiring an additional fee to make changes). Typically for US airlines, fare class "F" is the unrestricted/"full fare" for first class and is fully refundable and can be freely changed; fare class "J" is the same for business class; and fare class "Y" is the same for economy class. United uses two codes for first class depending on the cabin arrangement. In a two-cabin (i.e., economy and first class cabins) aircraft, "F2" is the "full fare" first-class, while on a three-cabin (economy, business and first class) aircraft, it's "F3". There is also a "pecking order" attached to the fare class which affects how and when passengers get shuffled around in case there aren't enough seats in the cabin of that fare class. The highest pecking order is, as expected, from an "F3" ticket; next in line is an "A3" (discounted three-cabin first class), then "F2", then "A2", then "J", then the lower-tier business class fares ("C", "D", "Z" and "P"), and then the full-fare economy class "Y", followed by a mix of other economy fares and "upgrade" fare classes (the "upgrade" fares are ones representing a ticket booked into one cabin but with a condition, or points/instrument attached, which grants a space-permitting right to be seated in a cabin of higher class).
dbg31415 9y ago
> 1. Let's stop overbooking in the airline industry. The seats are already prepaid for. Who cares if a passenger shows or not? (It'd be different if they were losing revenue when a passenger doesn't show up; they aren't). So they are loosing revenue. Here's why. A certain number of flights will be delayed, and people who are supposed to be on those connections... won't be. This means if they don't overbook, they will have more empty seats. They are pretty good with averages, and even though they are overbooked it generally works out due to the math that some people miss connections. These people paid, but they still have to be flown to their final destination. Which means putting them on later flights... if you don't want to be told, "Hey, sorry... we can't fit you for a week..." then letting the airline fudge the numbers a bit and squeeze people in and book based on statistical analysis is fine. Plus... the cost of all this... if they fly with more open seats... the cost of all of our tickets goes up. We say with our pocketbooks that we hate price hikes... this is why we have those stupidly small seats in the first place... everyone goes to Hipmonk and selects the cheapest flight they can find... not the fastest, not the most luxurious... the cheapest. They are doing what we want by overbooking based on statistics of who misses flights. Anyway, what needs to happen is much more simple. Just remove the cap on the vouchers. And bid on seats. No takers at $400? Go to $600. No takers at $600. Go to $800... and so on. Eventually, even on a flight full of people heading to their mother's funeral, they will hit a number that someone is willing to take in exchange for taking a later flight. You know how after 9/11 we reinforced the cabin doors and that was the only meaningful thing we needed to do and everything else they have spent billions upon billions of dollars for was just for show? Yeah, let's not go overboard and fuck up travel any more with regulations and more hassle. The root issue here is the abysmally small cap on vouchers.
- markdown 9y ago
  > Anyway, what needs to happen is much more simple. Just remove the cap on the vouchers. And bid on seats. No takers at $400? Go to $600. No takers at $600. Go to $800... and so on. Eventually, even on a flight full of people heading to their mother's funeral, they will hit a number that someone is willing to take in exchange for taking a later flight. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/delta-offer-10000-to-flyers-give-up-seats/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/delta-offer-10000-to-flyers-give...
jasode 9y ago
>- Overbooking (unnecessary) Flight #3411 wasn't overbooked. Instead, they were perfectly booked -- the plane had 70 seats and they sold all 70 with zero no-shows. That's a dream economic outcome for the airline. What threw the monkey wrench into the situation was adding 4 last-minute employees to the sold-out flight which required that they remove 4 paying customers already in their seats. United stopped the financial incentives at $800 and then called Chicago Aviation Police. The widespread media reporting it as "overbooked" (which was no doubt legitimized by the United CEO using the same "overbooked" language) successfully deflected part of the blame to some abstract concept ("it was the overbooking!"). Yes, people do get involuntarily bumped from overbookings all the time but that was not the situation with this specific flight.
- kelnos 9y ago
  I get this, and agree that the flight was not overbooked. However, let's assume for a minute that a flight was overbooked, and that the airline screwed up and issued boarding passes and seat assignments to more people than could fit on the plane. They start the boarding process before they realize their mistake. They ask for volunteers. No bites. They ask the computer to pick four unfortunate souls. One of the four won't leave the plane. Security is called. Security is overzealous and beats the guy up. I think this scenario is just as plausible as the one that played out. I bring this up because I think we're focusing on the wrong thing. Dr. Dao should certainly be focusing on United's improper use of IDB rules, since that's great grounds for a lawsuit. But let's say it was my hypothetical scenario. I suspect there would be just as much outrage. While I personally think it was foolish to refuse flight crew instructions (reading the news about anything airline-related in the past 15 years suggests that's going to get you in a lot of hot water), no one deserves to get beaten up like that for that "offense". Why are we focusing so hard on United's wrongdoing in the boarding process instead of focusing on why escalation of force is so accepted and easy?
  - xyzzy_plugh 9y ago
    I disagree, it's quite different. Hypothetically, if they let you board and you get to your seat, and it is empty, they could just leave you be. Hypothetically, if you get to your seat, and it's occupied, one of two things could happen: You could deplane and the airline will put you on another flight, or you could somehow convince the person in your seat to let you fly. But this should never even happen! You shouldn't even board! Also, hypothetically, the airline could halt boarding, ask everyone to deplane, pick who they don't want to let on however they want, and let everyone else board. They could do so many things that aren't yanking a person of a plane when they're already seated, involuntarily. All of these hypothetical situations seem far more sane to me. We're focusing on United's wrongdoing because they are the ones who escalated to forcibly remove a passenger from the plane. They did not have to do that.
nunez 9y ago
Overbooking hedges for last-minute cancellations. Wouldn't the airlines need to charge passengers more per flight in a world without it?

by jtrtoo 9y ago

cgag 9y ago

I might be ok with overbooking if they got rid of involuntary bumping and had to auction off being bumped until someone accepted the price.

adamson 9y ago
Imagine the game theory analyses on frequent flyer sites
markdown 9y ago
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/delta-offer-10000-to-flyers-give-up-seats/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/delta-offer-10000-to-flyers-give...
fshaun 9y ago
I don't think introducing an unbounded liability is the solution to this (or perhaps any) problem. Would this work for 99% of flights? Sure. But it's just asking to be gamed.
- cgag 9y ago
  You could counter game it by not overbooking. Or start at like 10k and auction down.

Cerium 9y ago

Ending overbooking would end leniency on missed flights. Many airlines allow zero or low cost rebooking for flights missed due to transportation delays "flat tire rules". I think we should just have some transparency on overbooking and limit it by some well known statistical measure.

qzervaas 9y ago
But the rebooked seat doesn't displace somebody on the next flight, so what's the actual cost?
- NeutronBoy 9y ago
  If I miss a flight by say 15 mins, in certain fare classes, the airline will let me reschedule to a later flight at no cost. Which means if they can't resell that seat in 15 mins, they're losing money because that seat is now empty (and they're essentially refunded me the price)

dagw 9y ago

1. Let's stop overbooking in the airline industry. The seats are already prepaid for. Who cares if a passenger shows or not? (It'd be different if they were losing revenue when a passenger doesn't show up; they aren't). At least for business class tickets, if the passenger doesn't show up they have to reimburse or re-book the ticket, so they are losing revenue when a passenger doesn't show up. The obvious answer for bumping passengers is simply an auction. At some price below what it costs to charter a private jet on short notice you will find people willing to give up their seats.

markdown 9y ago
> The obvious answer for bumping passengers is simply an auction. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/delta-offer-10000-to-flyers-give-up-seats/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/delta-offer-10000-to-flyers-give...
ubernostrum 9y ago
Just like economy class, business-class and first-class tickets come in multiple fare classes, and lower fare classes come with restrictions (such as not being refundable or requiring an additional fee to make changes). Typically for US airlines, fare class "F" is the unrestricted/"full fare" for first class and is fully refundable and can be freely changed; fare class "J" is the same for business class; and fare class "Y" is the same for economy class. United uses two codes for first class depending on the cabin arrangement. In a two-cabin (i.e., economy and first class cabins) aircraft, "F2" is the "full fare" first-class, while on a three-cabin (economy, business and first class) aircraft, it's "F3". There is also a "pecking order" attached to the fare class which affects how and when passengers get shuffled around in case there aren't enough seats in the cabin of that fare class. The highest pecking order is, as expected, from an "F3" ticket; next in line is an "A3" (discounted three-cabin first class), then "F2", then "A2", then "J", then the lower-tier business class fares ("C", "D", "Z" and "P"), and then the full-fare economy class "Y", followed by a mix of other economy fares and "upgrade" fare classes (the "upgrade" fares are ones representing a ticket booked into one cabin but with a condition, or points/instrument attached, which grants a space-permitting right to be seated in a cabin of higher class).

dbg31415 9y ago

> 1. Let's stop overbooking in the airline industry. The seats are already prepaid for. Who cares if a passenger shows or not? (It'd be different if they were losing revenue when a passenger doesn't show up; they aren't). So they are loosing revenue. Here's why. A certain number of flights will be delayed, and people who are supposed to be on those connections... won't be. This means if they don't overbook, they will have more empty seats. They are pretty good with averages, and even though they are overbooked it generally works out due to the math that some people miss connections. These people paid, but they still have to be flown to their final destination. Which means putting them on later flights... if you don't want to be told, "Hey, sorry... we can't fit you for a week..." then letting the airline fudge the numbers a bit and squeeze people in and book based on statistical analysis is fine. Plus... the cost of all this... if they fly with more open seats... the cost of all of our tickets goes up. We say with our pocketbooks that we hate price hikes... this is why we have those stupidly small seats in the first place... everyone goes to Hipmonk and selects the cheapest flight they can find... not the fastest, not the most luxurious... the cheapest. They are doing what we want by overbooking based on statistics of who misses flights. Anyway, what needs to happen is much more simple. Just remove the cap on the vouchers. And bid on seats. No takers at $400? Go to $600. No takers at $600. Go to $800... and so on. Eventually, even on a flight full of people heading to their mother's funeral, they will hit a number that someone is willing to take in exchange for taking a later flight. You know how after 9/11 we reinforced the cabin doors and that was the only meaningful thing we needed to do and everything else they have spent billions upon billions of dollars for was just for show? Yeah, let's not go overboard and fuck up travel any more with regulations and more hassle. The root issue here is the abysmally small cap on vouchers.

markdown 9y ago
> Anyway, what needs to happen is much more simple. Just remove the cap on the vouchers. And bid on seats. No takers at $400? Go to $600. No takers at $600. Go to $800... and so on. Eventually, even on a flight full of people heading to their mother's funeral, they will hit a number that someone is willing to take in exchange for taking a later flight. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/delta-offer-10000-to-flyers-give-up-seats/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/delta-offer-10000-to-flyers-give...

jasode 9y ago

>- Overbooking (unnecessary) Flight #3411 wasn't overbooked. Instead, they were perfectly booked -- the plane had 70 seats and they sold all 70 with zero no-shows. That's a dream economic outcome for the airline. What threw the monkey wrench into the situation was adding 4 last-minute employees to the sold-out flight which required that they remove 4 paying customers already in their seats. United stopped the financial incentives at $800 and then called Chicago Aviation Police. The widespread media reporting it as "overbooked" (which was no doubt legitimized by the United CEO using the same "overbooked" language) successfully deflected part of the blame to some abstract concept ("it was the overbooking!"). Yes, people do get involuntarily bumped from overbookings all the time but that was not the situation with this specific flight.

kelnos 9y ago
I get this, and agree that the flight was not overbooked. However, let's assume for a minute that a flight was overbooked, and that the airline screwed up and issued boarding passes and seat assignments to more people than could fit on the plane. They start the boarding process before they realize their mistake. They ask for volunteers. No bites. They ask the computer to pick four unfortunate souls. One of the four won't leave the plane. Security is called. Security is overzealous and beats the guy up. I think this scenario is just as plausible as the one that played out. I bring this up because I think we're focusing on the wrong thing. Dr. Dao should certainly be focusing on United's improper use of IDB rules, since that's great grounds for a lawsuit. But let's say it was my hypothetical scenario. I suspect there would be just as much outrage. While I personally think it was foolish to refuse flight crew instructions (reading the news about anything airline-related in the past 15 years suggests that's going to get you in a lot of hot water), no one deserves to get beaten up like that for that "offense". Why are we focusing so hard on United's wrongdoing in the boarding process instead of focusing on why escalation of force is so accepted and easy?
- xyzzy_plugh 9y ago
  I disagree, it's quite different. Hypothetically, if they let you board and you get to your seat, and it is empty, they could just leave you be. Hypothetically, if you get to your seat, and it's occupied, one of two things could happen: You could deplane and the airline will put you on another flight, or you could somehow convince the person in your seat to let you fly. But this should never even happen! You shouldn't even board! Also, hypothetically, the airline could halt boarding, ask everyone to deplane, pick who they don't want to let on however they want, and let everyone else board. They could do so many things that aren't yanking a person of a plane when they're already seated, involuntarily. All of these hypothetical situations seem far more sane to me. We're focusing on United's wrongdoing because they are the ones who escalated to forcibly remove a passenger from the plane. They did not have to do that.

nunez 9y ago

Overbooking hedges for last-minute cancellations. Wouldn't the airlines need to charge passengers more per flight in a world without it?