8 ms·

Overbooking is a technique used by legacy airlines. Pure LCCs don't use it (certainly in Europe) because their tickets are non-refundable other than from EC261

• amorphid 10y ago
  Southwest flights aren't that cheap unless you book in advance. And they used to (still might?) have a very flexible refund policy. You could not show up for a flight, never call, and still get a full credit for the value of your ticket to any other Southwest flight in the next 12 months w/ no penalty. I really like Southwest.
  • corford 10y ago
    I've never used them and admittedly don't know much about their model (the only time I fly US carriers is when I'm crossing the pond from Europe).
  • pauldino 10y ago
    They've restricted it slightly: now you have to notify them at least 10 minutes before the flight. But still no penalties - I really hope they don't have to do away with that policy since that's the main thing I like about Southwest.
    • amorphid 10y ago
      That's still flexible enough for my needs. Thanks for the info.
    • Cyph0n 10y ago
      That's still better than most other airlines. I'll definitely be considering SW from now on. I'm assuming they only do domestic flights?
      • kingnothing 10y ago
        They're mostly domestic US with a small offering of routes to the Caribbean, Mexico, and Lat Am.
      • sshanky 10y ago
        They recently added quite a few international flights [1]. They now offer service to Aruba, Belize, Cabo San Lucas/Los Cabos, Cancun, Cuba (not sure if it has started yet), Grand Cayman Island, Liberia, Costa Rica, Mexico City, Montego Bay, Nassau, Puerto Vallarta, Punta Cana, San Jose, and Costa Rica. [1] https://www.southwest.com/international/ https://www.southwest.com/international/
    • madengr 10y ago
      If you miss a flight they cancel the whole thing, including the return flight. Bastards.
      • megablast 10y ago
        Every single airline does this. In part, because people would often book returns because they were cheaper than one-ways.
        • dingaling 10y ago
          The majority of seats sold in Europe are now one-way / singles, due to the rise of low-cost carriers which don't offer anything else. However it's still a good idea to book each individual flight in a different transaction. Avoids any shennanigans on the airline's part for no-shows and there's no downside for the passenger other than a slightly longer booking process.
    • ww520 10y ago
      The 10 minutes prior departure cancellation rule is for full refund to the original payment method, i.e. refund to credit card or cash. If you missed the flight without cancellation, you got back SW credit as refund, which has to be used within a year.
      • linkregister 10y ago
        For the lowest-price ticket, "Super Web Saver" or whatever, there is no way to get a cash refund for a cancelled flight 24 hours after purchase. You just get the credit for cancelling 10 minutes before departure. After that, you get nothing. It's in the contract. I think it's only been that way for 2 years or so.
  • deepnotderp 10y ago
    Yeah, they're super flexible, Southwest is pretty amazing.
• rlpb 10y ago
  Economically speaking, non-refundability doesn't necessarily make overbooking unnecessary. Let's take two airlines, A and B. Both only sell non-refundable tickes. A never overbooks. B always overbooks. What happens? A will fly with some number of empty seats on average, because they still get the occasional no-show. B flies with fewer empty seats on average because they overbook. Which airline can offer more competitive prices? It's B. Because by overbooking B's revenue per plane leg is higher. If that isn't clear, here's an example. Say the planes have a capacity of 100, and on average 2 people fail to show. A sells 100 tickets for $100.00 each. B sells 101 tickets for $99.02 each. On average, B makes more money on every flight, _and_ is more competitive on price. Of course with the numbers in my example the compensation paid by B on the odd occasion that everyone shows up probably kills any additional profit. The real numbers matter in order to determine to what extent this really happens in practice. But I hope I've demonstrated that non-refundability of tickets doesn't necessarily or automatically mean that overbooking is not profitable. So there is some potential level of competitive benefit to overbooking even on non-refundable tickets, assuming that some people still occasionally fail to show (because they miss a connection, become ill, or whatever).
  • pif 10y ago
    > If that isn't clear, here's an example. Say the planes have a capacity of 100, and on average 2 people fail to show. A sells 100 tickets for $100.00 each. B sells 101 tickets for $99.02 each. As usual, people striving to save one dollar no matter what (in this case, giving up the certainty of flying) are the problem.
    • rlpb 10y ago
      It could be much more than one dollar. Those were my made up numbers to demonstrate the principle, not any kind of indication of the magnitude of the real numbers. > As usual, people striving to save one dollar no matter what (in this case, giving up the certainty of flying) are the problem. It's not necessarily a problem. Flyers can choose between certainty of flying and other nice things that cost money. Most appear to choose having other nice things instead. Southwest is banking on flyers choosing the other way. There may well be space for both approaches in the market.