3 ms·

It needs to go much further. The practice of overbooking flights must be ended, and compensation enacted retroactively. It’s not just about airlines - it’s abou

It needs to go much further. The practice of overbooking flights must be ended, and compensation enacted retroactively. It’s not just about airlines - it’s about fair practices across the entire economy. There need to be visible consequences for fraud.

nickff 2y ago
Overbooking allows for reduced emissions, as more flights are closer to capacity. Do you think that eliminating the practice will be beneficial on net?
- mook 2y ago
  Overbooking would be fine if all of their sales literature makes it clear that you're effectively buying a lottery ticket to get on the plane. If it's being sold as a confirmed ticket, it needs to be actually there. They already have a mechanism to do that too; you can get on waitlists. Turns out they can't sell things at the same price when it's a waitlist, though.
  - yuliyp 2y ago
    Of all the reasons my travel might get interrupted, overbooking is among the least likely. It sucks when it happens, but so does anything (flight delay/cancellation, missed connection, etc.) that means I don't get where I wanted to on time. The compensation paid out to people bumped due to oversold flights is high enough that it's really almost a non-issue in practice.
    - alexanderchr 2y ago
      Yeah as long as the compensation for involuntary deboarding due to overbooking is high enough I don’t see a problem with the practice. It would be a huge waste to force airlines to fly around with empty seats to reduce the already tiny risk of someone getting kicked off the plane due to overbooking and lack of volunteers.
      - tacocataco 2y ago
        Why does the airline get to use violence to pay under market value to get someone off their plane? Keep bidding up the compensation till someone volunteers. Don't like the cost? To bad.
        alexanderchr 2y ago
        That’s just not how contract law works, at least in the west. You will generally never be forced to fulfil your obligations under a contract, rather you have to (reasonably) compensate the other party if you cannot.
        schoen 2y ago
        For more on this topic, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_performance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_performance
- michaelt 2y ago
  Why stop at that? It would reduce emissions even further if airlines were allowed to take customers' money and not provide any flights whatsoever.
  - throwup238 2y ago
    Then they wouldn't get the chance to upsell you on overpriced liquor. That's where the real money is.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- stemlord 2y ago
  That's funny because airlines are now also straight up asking customers during checkout for donations to go toward some mysterious emission reduction expenses meanwhile C-suites aren't taking pay cuts. Why is this the customer's responsibility? Privatize profits socialize losses etc
gruez 2y ago
>The practice of overbooking flights must be ended Overbooking flights isn't bad per se. There's good reason to do it, namely that people are inevitably flakey, so the airlines being able to oversell some seats allows them to get more revenue on a flight, and therefore allow them to charge everyone slightly less. As long as this is clearly disclosed, passengers are given an explicit choice and/or compensation if they're bumped, I don't see why it should be banned. >and compensation enacted retroactively Probably not constitutional, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  Making explicit whether a ticket is a guaranteed placement or is a waitlist would make the practice clearer. I don't know what the no-show fraction is, so pulling numbers out of /dev/ass: airlines might be mandated to sell 85% of tickets as assured placement (with corresponding cancellation penalities), and 25% of seats as provisional or standbye. Most of the standbye tickets would actually be seated, some would not. (In my hypothetical, the flight is 10% overbooked.) In the event of a standbye ticketholder being bumped, they'd be promoted to guaranteed placement on the next available flight (and perhaps given a service upgrade as well.) People with flexible travel schedules (students, some vacationers) could opt for a lower-cost provisional ticket. Those with fixed iteneraries or group-travel requirements (business travellers, families, etc.) would buy a guaranteed seat. Airlines could of course vary pricing by ticket class accordingly. In this case, the status and pricing would be explicit. And the overbooking / provisional fraction would likely vary by conditions --- high-travel periods, days of the week, and/or time-of-day might have a larger share of provisional seats. Low-travel periods, where flights are not fully booked would offer a larger share of, or exclusively, guaranteed tickets. Much of what I describe already exists, but effectively all coach-class ticketholders are provisional. Bumping occurs rarely, but can be highly disruptive when it does occur. With an explicit class of provisional tickets, expectations and needs could be better met.
- makeitdouble 2y ago
  It isn't allowed in any other industry I know of though. At an extreme, imagine getting a contract to work at company X, so you quit your current job and move to the other side of the country, just to be told they overprovisionned the position expecting some candidates to flake out and void your contract with a ticket to get extra bonus next time you get to work for them. Or getting a loan to buy a house, just to be told at the last minute that someone else beat you to the line. In most other situations we'd have the airlines eat the risk,and they'd need to find other ways to make it work (have a pool of non priority cargo to fill the plane for instance)

nickff 2y ago

Overbooking allows for reduced emissions, as more flights are closer to capacity. Do you think that eliminating the practice will be beneficial on net?

mook 2y ago
Overbooking would be fine if all of their sales literature makes it clear that you're effectively buying a lottery ticket to get on the plane. If it's being sold as a confirmed ticket, it needs to be actually there. They already have a mechanism to do that too; you can get on waitlists. Turns out they can't sell things at the same price when it's a waitlist, though.
- yuliyp 2y ago
  Of all the reasons my travel might get interrupted, overbooking is among the least likely. It sucks when it happens, but so does anything (flight delay/cancellation, missed connection, etc.) that means I don't get where I wanted to on time. The compensation paid out to people bumped due to oversold flights is high enough that it's really almost a non-issue in practice.
  - alexanderchr 2y ago
    Yeah as long as the compensation for involuntary deboarding due to overbooking is high enough I don’t see a problem with the practice. It would be a huge waste to force airlines to fly around with empty seats to reduce the already tiny risk of someone getting kicked off the plane due to overbooking and lack of volunteers.
    - tacocataco 2y ago
      Why does the airline get to use violence to pay under market value to get someone off their plane? Keep bidding up the compensation till someone volunteers. Don't like the cost? To bad.
      - alexanderchr 2y ago
        That’s just not how contract law works, at least in the west. You will generally never be forced to fulfil your obligations under a contract, rather you have to (reasonably) compensate the other party if you cannot.
        schoen 2y ago
        For more on this topic, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_performance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_performance
michaelt 2y ago
Why stop at that? It would reduce emissions even further if airlines were allowed to take customers' money and not provide any flights whatsoever.
- throwup238 2y ago
  Then they wouldn't get the chance to upsell you on overpriced liquor. That's where the real money is.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
stemlord 2y ago
That's funny because airlines are now also straight up asking customers during checkout for donations to go toward some mysterious emission reduction expenses meanwhile C-suites aren't taking pay cuts. Why is this the customer's responsibility? Privatize profits socialize losses etc

gruez 2y ago

>The practice of overbooking flights must be ended Overbooking flights isn't bad per se. There's good reason to do it, namely that people are inevitably flakey, so the airlines being able to oversell some seats allows them to get more revenue on a flight, and therefore allow them to charge everyone slightly less. As long as this is clearly disclosed, passengers are given an explicit choice and/or compensation if they're bumped, I don't see why it should be banned. >and compensation enacted retroactively Probably not constitutional, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder

dredmorbius 2y ago
Making explicit whether a ticket is a guaranteed placement or is a waitlist would make the practice clearer. I don't know what the no-show fraction is, so pulling numbers out of /dev/ass: airlines might be mandated to sell 85% of tickets as assured placement (with corresponding cancellation penalities), and 25% of seats as provisional or standbye. Most of the standbye tickets would actually be seated, some would not. (In my hypothetical, the flight is 10% overbooked.) In the event of a standbye ticketholder being bumped, they'd be promoted to guaranteed placement on the next available flight (and perhaps given a service upgrade as well.) People with flexible travel schedules (students, some vacationers) could opt for a lower-cost provisional ticket. Those with fixed iteneraries or group-travel requirements (business travellers, families, etc.) would buy a guaranteed seat. Airlines could of course vary pricing by ticket class accordingly. In this case, the status and pricing would be explicit. And the overbooking / provisional fraction would likely vary by conditions --- high-travel periods, days of the week, and/or time-of-day might have a larger share of provisional seats. Low-travel periods, where flights are not fully booked would offer a larger share of, or exclusively, guaranteed tickets. Much of what I describe already exists, but effectively all coach-class ticketholders are provisional. Bumping occurs rarely, but can be highly disruptive when it does occur. With an explicit class of provisional tickets, expectations and needs could be better met.
makeitdouble 2y ago
It isn't allowed in any other industry I know of though. At an extreme, imagine getting a contract to work at company X, so you quit your current job and move to the other side of the country, just to be told they overprovisionned the position expecting some candidates to flake out and void your contract with a ticket to get extra bonus next time you get to work for them. Or getting a loan to buy a house, just to be told at the last minute that someone else beat you to the line. In most other situations we'd have the airlines eat the risk,and they'd need to find other ways to make it work (have a pool of non priority cargo to fill the plane for instance)