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Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes
- jemfinch 9y agoDoes that mean ticket prices will increase?
- ubernostrum 9y agoSouthwest already often isn't the cheapest, or even close to the cheapest, fare on many routes. And whether this causes an increase in fares will mostly depend on the existing load factor. If they already had planes mostly going out with a few empty seats, they don't necessarily have to change anything.
- nathancahill 9y agoI've flown very often with Southwest, and have rarely seen a completely full plane. The fullest I've seen still has one or two middle seats free at the very back of the plane.
- cortesoft 9y agoYou must fly very different routes than me... the flights I am on are almost always full.
- leesalminen 9y agoThis mirrors my experience as well, especially flights to/from DEN. TPA - SJU is one notable exception.
- mwfunk 9y agoI can't even remember the last time I was on a flight (Southwest included) that wasn't at capacity. I'm sure it depends on where you're flying to and from though.
- noer 9y agoThe time of day matters though. Early morning departures, in my experience - especially on weekends, are almost always partially empty. Last week I flew on a flight that left at 5:55 AM that was less than half full (25 people on a regional jet). Last December I flew on a southwest flight that left at 7:45 AM that was about half full (probably 60 people on a 737).
- shliachtx 9y agoThey are currently in the process of moving to a more flexible scheduling system (until now they could only have a weekday and weekend schedule) which should allow them to have more profitable flights (as they dont need to flt an empty plane for 3 days if only 2 days are high volume).
- sandworm101 9y agoI don't see how it could. Only a handful of people on any one flight are ever bumped, on average. The bumped are normally put on other flights. The only 'win' is where someone doesn't show and also doesn't fly or get a refund. I cannot see how it is more than 1 or 2% of revenue. That said, perhaps I am dead wrong and overbooking is being used for darker purposes. Perhaps they are deliberately overselling flights at peak times knowing that they will push bumped customers to later less-full flights. If that is being done knowingly, that's a bait-and-switch operation that might be worth more than a couple percent.
- mwfunk 9y agoWell, if it's a 1-2% decrease in revenue there might be a 1-2% price increase. I thought the margins for US airlines were incredibly small (could be wrong, I'm no expert).
- jonknee 9y agoThey also won't have to pay the people who get bumped which will somewhat offset the lost revenue from overbooking.
- nommm-nommm 9y agoI was under the impression they didn't actually pay people bumped, only gave them a voucher for their next flight that they probably won't even use. Do they actually give cash?
- jonknee 9y agoThey give flight vouchers, but they often have other direct expenses like hotel accommodations and food. The last time I was bumped it was ~$600 airline voucher, transportation to/from a ski resort (a perk of being bumped in the mountains!), a room for the night and a good meal voucher to cover dinner and breakfast the next day. Plus they still flew me out the next day and took care of rebooking the connection on another airline. I don't know exactly how much it cost them, but I made out like a bandit.
- koolba 9y agoSouthwest already allows cancelling your ticket up to the last minute for a future credit so presumably most people that will miss the flight do so already. I wouldn't expect this impacts their fares much, if at all. Now if United, AA, or other large airlines that don't offer cancellation did this, that'd be another story.
- rhino369 9y ago>Southwest already allows cancelling your ticket up to the last minute for a future credit so presumably most people that will miss the flight do so already. I wouldn't expect this impacts their fares much, if at all. One reason you'd let people cancel at the last minute is because you overbook flights. If you have 100 seats, book 105 people and then 4 cancel, that cancellation didn't cost anything. If you book 100 people and turned away other passengers, then 4 people cancel at the last minute, now you lost 4 sales.
- amorphid 9y agoSouthwest's cancellation policy is a big reason why I love them.
- aresant 9y agoThis response feels knee jerk. It's been demonstrated in countless other threads (1) and articles (2) how economically important it is to overbook. Overbooking is central to airline profitability and their ability to provide flexibility - like partial refunds, or SW's "open tickets" policy on business select. As a consumer I appreciate these things and find them incredibly useful. United's response of "We'll push the allowance up to $10,000" is completely acceptable to me, that seems like the simplest solution. (1) http://www.businessinsider.com/overbooking-flights-is-good-for-consumers-2017-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/overbooking-flights-is-good-f... (2) https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/11/overbooking/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/11/overbooking/
- diogenescynic 9y ago>how economically important it is to overbook. I still don't believe this claim. A 727 seats 129, a 787 seats 290, and a 747 seats 366. That means it only makes flights slightly less expensive. I only travel a few times a year and I'd rather pay 2% more than get bumped off my flight. Why do we allow airlines to overbook but not movie theaters or other industries? This seems like an artificial advantage we've given them and it doesn't seem beneficial at all to the average consumer.
- ldiracdelta 9y agoIf theaters had an escalating buyback price for their tickets, I could be persuaded to, say, not see the next Star Wars movie for $100 and then see it later. I have a price. Most people do.
- lucasmullens 9y agoPaying 2% more and getting bumped off your flight is a false dichotomy. United's approach of offering $10k avoids both. I don't see a reason to waste seats if it can be avoided without hurting consumers. Wasting seats is inefficient economically and bad for the environment.
- linkregister 9y agoI've seen movie theaters overbook too. I think you might be surprised about how many industries overbook. I think it's the worst when hotels overbook. Typically the replacement hotel is less nice and has a bad location.
- chmaynard 9y agoSouthwest Airlines has the best website, best checked luggage policy, best change policy, and now no overbooking. The big four domestic airlines all treat coach passengers like cattle, but Southwest is the least predatory. Edit: Also, consider that Southwest is very profitable despite the fact that they don't have first class or business class sections on their aircraft. Yes, passengers pay different fares. But as far as I know, they all sit in the same crappy seats.
- praneshp 9y agoVirgin America[0] has a better website, in my opinion. Southwest has always been nice to me, but when they had their big outage in May 2016 they were quite rude to everyone. https://www.virginamerica.com/ https://www.virginamerica.com/
- Veratyr 9y agoTo offer a counterpoint, Southwest also offers the worst boarding procedure, unless travelling alone or with kids. My wife and I were going on vacation and it was impossible to get seats together as we were pretty far back in the assigned line positions and by the time we got on the plane, there were no two vacant seats next to each other. After landing we discovered that checking in at the right time might get us further ahead in the line but we tried that, checking in within minutes of checkin opening and were still pretty far back in the lines. We ended up buying an "upgrade" to get us ahead in the line and next to each other. For us to do that for both flights, we'd have been paying ~50% extra for a feature that comes by default with all other airlines. Also, while interacting with Southwest's famously "better", more "caring" staff, we were met with total disinterest and absolutely no sympathy.
- gregschlom 9y agoI have a question for the HN crowd: what would happen if airlines sold their seats at a fixed price and let customers resell them? For the sake of the discussion let's assume that all seats are in the same class (ie: economy) - there are no business / first class seats. So the idea would be: 1. All seats are sold at the same price, no matter how early or how late you buy. The price covers all the costs associated with running this flight, given an expected "occupancy rate" (sorry not the right term). 2. All tickets are non-refundable. If a customer changes their mind, they use the airline app to put their ticket up for sale. They can try to sell the ticket at the same price, or at a discount (or maybe even at a higher price?) 3. Airline charges a small fee (something like $10) every time the ticket is transferred to another person. Since this has never been done - to my knowledge - there must be something wrong with it. But I wonder what it is?
- jowiar 9y agoThe challenge is whether you are fundamentally buying a seat on a particular plane, or transit from point A to point B. Almost all simple solutions re: air travel break down once connections get involved.
- sjm-lbm 9y agoAlso breaks down for equipment swaps. If we view seats on a given flight as assets that can be resold, there's a lot of ways that normal (even understandable) airline operations can "devalue" those assets, and sorting that out legally would be an amazing mess.
- jowiar 9y agoPretty much any American airline that provides "better" service generally does something along the lines of having a very limited coverage map and a more-or-less a uniform fleet. Most problems with air travel are "last mile" problems, with "last mile" is defined as flying to a location that does not have a critical mass of service to really be a "full service" city.
- cvburgess 9y ago
- spullara 9y agoThey just need to charge people for no shows and QED.
- mrtron 9y agoAs a customer, I would rather get charged for a no-show than get removed from a flight.
- loeg 9y agoThey already do. Refundable tickets cost about twice as much as non-refundable.
- spullara 9y agoUsually when you miss your flight you get credit. So non-refundable just means you can't get cash. Most times you still can use the price of the ticket on another flight in my experience.
- rdl 9y agoI think my favorite solution to this is to sell "guaranteed" and "standby" tickets. Sell full plane capacity of "guaranteed", and then any ticket after that is bumpable/standby. You could potentially switch to sell "bumpable" tickets earlier, too, at a discount. If the airline is flying ~8 flights a day from SFO-SEA, I'd be fine in many cases paying x% less for y% risk of being bumped one or two flights later.
- ramses0 9y agoPeople are price-sensitive (will always buy the cheapest option) and then complain when they don't get the expensive service. It is incredibly difficult to explain to someone: "You are not getting to your daughter's wedding because reasons." ...and nobody wins that argument when it happens. Apart from removing over-booking completely, the Delta "pre-blind-auction" is the best choice. All tickets are sold at their regular prices (no random discounts), and day-of people are able to decide if they are willing to be bumped (ideally: by how long) as well as the price it would take. There's a huge difference in "I'll take $1000 to be bumped to a later flight today" and "I'll take $1000 to be bumped to a flight that's two days later" (depending on the route, that is something that can happen). It's a delicate balance between customer service, incentives, and profit, and "guaranteed v. standby" pretty clearly fails.
- martinald 9y agoConsidering Ryanair doesn't overbook yet is stupidly profitable, I think it's possible to make this work.
- munificent 9y agoI didn't follow the doctor-getting-dragged-off debacle closely but I have a question about the basic mechanics of what went down: When I've been boarding on flights, they do the overbooking announcement at the gate and get volunteers to take later flights there, before people board. That makes a lot more sense because, in the event that no one volunteers, the airline can simply refuse to let certain people on. They don't have to take the seat away from the passenger, they can just not to give it to them. Certainly, psychologically, people are a hell of a lot more attached to something once it's been given to them. I've toyed with the idea of taking a later flight before, but I'd be much less likely to do that once I was all settled into my seat. How is it that the doctor was already seated when they "volunteered" him to not fly? That seems like the main fuck-up to me.
- justinpombrio 9y ago> How is it that the doctor was already seated when they "volunteered" him to not fly? That seems like the main fuck-up to me. Yes, it was. Well, that and when he was beaten bloody by the police.
- Karunamon 9y agoHow is it that the doctor was already seated when they "volunteered" him to not fly? That seems like the main fuck-up to me. It is. Different parts of FAA rules and even United's contract of carriage apply once you're boarded. Overbooking doesn't even apply here - the doctor had a reserved confirmed seat.
- CamperBob2 9y agoThe important detail that everyone likes to ignore is that the flight was not overbooked. It was filled to capacity. Everybody who wanted to be on the flight was on the airplane. Then United decided to reaccommodate four seated passengers to make room for four employees who were needed elsewhere. Their contract of carriage allows them to kick you off under certain conditions, but that's not one of them. "Overbooking" didn't come into play at all in this case.
- munificent 9y ago
- randyrand 9y agoLets hope Southwest doesn't become uncompetitive.
- CamperBob2 9y agoThey know what they're doing.
- johngalt 9y agoThe problem isn't overbooking. The problem is not auctioning the seats higher when overbooked. I've seen a number of overbooked southwest flights and people can't line up fast enough for a $300 flight credit + next available flight. I can't imagine it ever going over $1k. IMHO if any airline should continue overbooking it's SWA. No first class, no assigned seats. Most of the flights are short range with multiple flights options every day. You're much more likely to agree to switch to the next flight if it means only waiting 2hrs.
- lisper 9y ago> The problem isn't overbooking. The problem is not auctioning the seats higher when overbooked. This. Oh so very much this. United could have avoided this whole debacle simply by not imposing price controls on the market for seats when it became a buyer rather than a seller.
- rm_-rf_slash 9y agoAnd they could have offered the passenger free United flights for life and it still would have cost less than this embarrassing and protracted PR catastrophe ever will.
- PhantomGremlin 9y agoAs someone on pprune.org said: Announcer on local TV said it would be less damaging if United actually crashed the plane !
- desdiv 9y agoBlack Mirror episode: PR disaster happens at 40,000 feet and gets recorded by smartphones. Since they're still in the air the footage hasn't been uploaded to the internet yet. The on-board AI supercomputer makes the determination that the negativity of a plane crash would be less than if the footage leaks out so it decides to crash itself in order to maximize profits.
- 9y ago
- thinkloop 9y agoThere is no "win" for the consumer here, same as when airlines decide to re-provide free food or free checked bags - these things get baked into the price of tickets, nothing is free. They are marketing. Rather than spend a million on ads, they spend a million on less efficient flights (by not overbooking), but hopefully getting more customers than ads would have gotten given this is a hot-button topic.
- gregorymichael 9y agoFor anyone looking to switch airlines amidst all the news lately, I can't recommend Southwest more highly. Flew them out of Chicago for business the last two years -- their rewards, no-fee rebooking, etc. literally changed our lives. Wrote a bit about it here: http://baugues.com/southwest http://baugues.com/southwest
- hueving 9y agoThis is stupid. As a passenger I benefit from overbooking because it means lower cost per ticket and the option to get free flights out of an overbooking scenario when I have a flexible schedule.
- ddingus 9y agoI love Southwest.
- ww520 9y agoThe pricing nature of an airline seat is such that the closer to the flight time the more expensive the ticket is. Consumers have been forced to pay more under this model for the longest time. Buying back seats due to overbooking should follow the same rule. Buying back seats at the time of flight departure should cost the most. If airlines follow their own pricing model, they won't have a problem. It's only when they try to bend the rules and use forces to get back those seats that people got upset.
- greeneggs 9y agoBetween San Francisco and Los Angeles, Southwest has a lot of flights on their schedule, but if one isn't full they'll just cancel it. Often all the midday flights will be cancelled. Technically, this isn't overbooking, but it feels like it.
- dandare 9y agoIs it possible to calculate a price tag for United's fiasco?
- heavymark 9y agoSeems odd that the airlines keep talking about overbooking but while yes overbooking is an issue, it's not this issue. This issue is that UA wasn't overbooked but rather allowed someone to get kicked off who was already boarded because late staff wanted to catch a free ride. JetBlue doesn't overbook, but they have removed passengers already boarded who have not violated any rules, other than they wanted to accommodate other passenger(s). Overbooking is an issue, and they should either stop overbooking (though that means potentially higher ticket costs for everyone), or when they do overbook make sure they don't start boarding everyone until someone has agreed to not fly and offer the appropriate amount to get someone not to fly, such as the max amount or cash rather than a voucher. But once again, that's a different discussion, and SW and others should focus on the bigger issue at hand that UA violated.
- maxerickson 9y agoThe employees were flying at the direction of the airline, in order to staff a flight elsewhere. So it wasn't really about what the employees themselves wanted or not.