Holiday is cancelled!

[ks.234]

That's what they do and hope for a certain percentage of no shows...

That is a bit odd as every flight I have ever been on has boarded families with children first. However your presumption is correct, all airlines overbook their flights (10% I think) and occasionally have to ask for volunteers to take a different flight, usually with some form of compensation. Only after then do they choose unwilling passengers against a list of priority - class booked, amount paid, frequent flyer status etc etc. Unfortunately cheap flight holiday flyers usually have the lowest status.

my DiL was in the unfortunate position of being the first in the queue to be refused entry to the plane. The person in front or her went through, then the steward, or whoever it was, turned away my DiL and everyone behind her. There were lots. No explanation, no information, nothing. Same at information desk, which was crowded with everyone else asking the same questions, no information, no explanation other than that cannot board.

 

[canonman]

Don't they usually ask for volunteers to be "bounced" with some incentives though once they know they are overbooked?

20 years ago, a mate worked for a US company and regularly flew to NYC. He always booked the red eye flight back on Fridays, knowing that it would be overbooked. BA offered cash and a flight back the following day.....on Concorde! Did this a few times.

 

[Richard Lines]

12% are business travellers according to this article...

I literally just found this same article and returning to post the same link, so in whichever article it was that I read originally it was underestimating the percentage....

Regards

Richard

 

[cutting42]

I'll now need to see if I can re-find the article and revert. The last two times out of ABZ and the arrivals area was chocka with the assembled masses all queuing for the likes of EasyJet etc. flights.

Between them and modern day security checks flying is a PITA.

Edited bit - forgot to mention now having to go through immigration at Schiphol is another PITA

Regards

Richard

I agree on Schiphol, not a nice airport to transition. Most of my flying is out of LHR T5 so don't get the Easyjet/Ryanair crowd there.

 

[cutting42]

12% are business travellers according to this article...

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/an...ness-travelers-compared-leisure-travelers.asp

I hadn’t realised that over half of the UK don’t fly at all... sometimes a good prod is needed in order to remember pfm doesn’t reflect society as a whole!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-56582094

I literally just found this same article and returning to post the same link, so in whichever article it was that I read originally it was underestimating the percentage....

Regards

Richard

Thanks both, interesting reading, especially that 40% of revenue is selling frequent flyer miles to partner companies

 

[zarniwoop]

my DiL was in the unfortunate position of being the first in the queue to be refused entry to the plane. The person in front or her went through, then the steward, or whoever it was, turned away my DiL and everyone behind her. There were lots. No explanation, no information, nothing. Same at information desk, which was crowded with everyone else asking the same questions, no information, no explanation other than that cannot board.

I find this surprising. I'd expect if the flight was overbooked this would be caught at check-in, not boarding. If she had hold bags they could have been on the plane by that point. I suspect there is some other explanation.

 

[ks.234]

I find this surprising. I'd expect if the flight was overbooked this would be caught at check-in, not boarding. If she had hold bags they could have been on the plane by that point. I suspect there is some other explanation.

Yes, I expect my DiL was being a bit delusional

 

[zarniwoop]

Yes, I expect my DiL was being a bit delusional

I'm not sure if you have taken offence at my comment but it was made in good faith. I'm not suggesting the event didn't occur but that I'd expect a cause other than overbooking owing to her being turned away at the gate. Perhaps they discovered late on that some of the seats were unusable for some reason?

 

[davidsrsb]

Late change to a smaller capacity aircraft perhaps?
A nightmare for the airline as the aircraft must not takeoff with the bounced passengers luggage.

 

[gintonic]

i have seen this on Easyjet before a few years ago. A missing cabin crew member, meant they could only fly with three cabin crew instead of four. Thus a reduced passenger capacity. In the queue i was in, they were offering money to come off the flight.

 

[CDphobe]

I literally just found this same article and returning to post the same link, so in whichever article it was that I read originally it was underestimating the percentage....

Regards

Richard

Hang on though, just because 12% are business passengers that doesn't mean all the rest are "tourists". How would that research categorise anyone travelling (eg) to see family? There are all sorts of reasons that people travel by air, and I suspect that the description tourist as originally used implied those that are travelling to a holiday destination, and unlikely to be familiar with processes and terminal layout. I know an awful lot of business travellers who still faff about at security, and who clog the duty free shop aisles imaging the savings they're making. Likewise, frequent travellers not going to a work event who could just breeze through if it weren't for all the queues

Al

 

[gintonic]

in the airport dataset i have seen (for machine learning purposes) the high level division is business vs leisure

 

[ks.234]

I'm not sure if you have taken offence at my comment but it was made in good faith. I'm not suggesting the event didn't occur but that I'd expect a cause other than overbooking owing to her being turned away at the gate. Perhaps they discovered late on that some of the seats were unusable for some reason?

Like I said, she booked in as soon as she was able. Having a 7 month old on her hip meant she double checked everything as far as she could

 

[Bob McC]

Easyjet have been trying to deal with the staffing crisis by reducing the number of seats and flying with one less crew member.
But I can’t see that they wouldn’t plan this with plenty of notice.

 

[gintonic]

But I can’t see that they wouldn’t plan this with plenty of notice.

in my case above it was staff no-show and no contingency

 

[wacko]

Many economy passengers are on business trips: many companies only pay for business tickets over 4/5/6 hours flights and/or specified seniority.

 

[Bob McC]

in my case above it was staff no-show and no contingency

But I notice you say they were asking for volunteers and offering inducements in the queue. I’ve experienced the same.
But for it to get to the gate and then refused boarding?

 

[Bob McC]

We were due to fly off on holiday on Monday and we got a telephone call from the package tour operator (scenic) to say that our 10 day holiday has been cancelled. Even if we manage to get 100% of our cash back from scenic (credit card payment) we'll still be out of pocket for a) the cost of insurance and b )the cost of reserving BA flight seats. BA states that the cost of reserved seats is none refundable unless they cancel a flight. We spoke to the insurance co (staysure) to enquire if we could cancel the insurance and recover at least some of the cost as they were now insuring something that has since been cancelled. They hadn't a clue what to do.

I don't see why we should be out of pocket for several hundreds when this is beyond our control.

Interesting no?

DV

Don’t forget that if Scenic play silly beggars your credit card company is equally and separately liable.

 

[sideshowbob]

One of the reasons it took us 2 days at Frankfurt airport to get a flight home back in May was that every single flight had been overbooked and there were simply no flights to bump people onto. This is the new normal, or certainly was in the spring. The response has been to cancel swathes of flights rather than risk a repeat of the airport chaos there was in May. Longer term, flying is either going to become much more expensive, to discourage too many people from trying do it in the first place, or the airlines are going to have to find replacements for the thousands of people they laid off after furlough ended.

 

[Richard Lines]

How would that research categorise anyone travelling (eg) to see family?

Without wishing to causing offence to anyone here but as posted by @gintonic it is a simple division and I shall use the term leisure from here onwards. Tourism and visiting far away relatives don't fall under a category of "essential" travel.

Many economy passengers are on business trips: many companies only pay for business tickets over 4/5/6 hours flights and/or specified seniority.

Whilst working with Chevron, Master's and C/E's only got business travel if the journey was over 6hrs for instance. If my last two years experience was anything to go by the ever increasing size of the Business Class sections on aircraft are leading to a degraded service anyway. The only advantages to me would have been reduced queuing times and the free pass to an airport lounge to relax away from the masses.

Nowadays I am part of that mass and it really is a pain...... I know a lot of people who don't fly too often probably get all excited about the prospect but as a regular traveller it is quite challenging and as for helicopters offshore that's just another, much worse world.

Regards

Richard