Southwest ending overbooked flights

I do not see how airlines are hurt by not overselling. If people miss the flights on their own, well then the airline still has their money. If people miss due to other things that isn't their fault, they can be put standby on the next flight instead of confirmed if that flt is completely full.

The only thing maybe I could see is the refundable tickets were people drop off last minute and without enough time to sell the seat.
I do not see why airlines have to still oversell flights, booking to 100% should be completely fine.
 
jayd1038 said:
I do not see how airlines are hurt by not overselling. If people miss the flights on their own, well then the airline still has their money. If people miss due to other things that isn't their fault, they can be put standby on the next flight instead of confirmed if that flt is completely full.

The only thing maybe I could see is the refundable tickets were people drop off last minute and without enough time to sell the seat.
I do not see why airlines have to still oversell flights, booking to 100% should be completely fine.
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http://crankyflier.com/2017/04/11/dont-blame-overbooking-for-this-united-mess/
 
little_cricket said:
http://crankyflier.com/2017/04/11/dont-blame-overbooking-for-this-united-mess/
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Yeah I get it though, they will supposedly lose revenue by overselling. I do think it's possible that they wouldn't necessarily though. I am not pretending to fully understand revenue management of airlines, but I feel like making moves like that increases an airlines view in the public, especially the people who don't know much about flying. I do think it's possible that you would see more people buying tickets because of this, as they don't have to worry about being denied. I suppose there are a lot of variables.

So I rescind my statement, I could see where airlines could lose out on some revenue sure, but I hardly feel bad for them. Right now with extra fees airlines have been making a killing. They still vastly underpay their workforce as a whole too, but that's for a separate discussion.
 
Jordan93 said:
And what will happen to ticket prices?
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Oh well. I'm glad all these airlines are finally wisening up to how terrible things have become for the traveling public. Heaven forbid you're trying to get somewhere for an event or something popular and your flight gets cancelled. With how heavily booked flights are you might have to wait a few if not several days and miss the point of wherever you were trying to go and overbooking only makes things worse. I'll happily pay more when I need vacation so I can feel much more confident I'll get where I'm going. This is just one more reason to fly Southwest who never seem to let me down.

If you work for the regionals and airlines isn't this trend away from overbooking making things so much better as it'll be easier for you to find seats and take advantage of your travel perks? I'm amazed that there's anyone here complaining about overbooking being toned down and gotten rid of. I can only imagine how much extra stress this could cause gate agents and I'm sure that gets rubbed off on flight crews.
 
srn121 said:
Oh well. I'm glad all these airlines are finally wisening up to how terrible things have become for the traveling public. Heaven forbid you're trying to get somewhere for an event or something popular and your flight gets cancelled. With how heavily booked flights are you might have to wait a few if not several days and miss the point of wherever you were trying to go and overbooking only makes things worse. I'll happily pay more when I need vacation so I can feel much more confident I'll get where I'm going. This is just one more reason to fly Southwest who never seem to let me down.

If you work for the regionals and airlines isn't this trend away from overbooking making things so much better as it'll be easier for you to find seats and take advantage of your travel perks? I'm amazed that there's anyone here complaining about overbooking being toned down and gotten rid of. I can only imagine how much extra stress this could cause gate agents and I'm sure that gets rubbed off on flight crews.
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People complain about overbooking and rising ticket prices. It's going to be one or the other.
 
Jordan93 said:
People complain about overbooking and rising ticket prices. It's going to be one or the other.
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Uh... Oh Well? If they can't afford to be on your flight it's not your problem.

There's always going to be a small minority of people who bitch and whine, expect it and don't take it personally. I just don't see how anyone deserves the title 'captain' when they whine nearly as much and I'd like to expect a more mature attitude from professionals.
 
Just thinking out loud, but could it be possible that overbooking is actually something valued by the legacies' most lucrative customers? If you're a super mega platinum on American wouldn't you appreciate that you can almost always book a seat on the flight you need, even if it's full? I can't imagine the guy who needs to go from Moline to Shanghai would appreciate a "sold out" sign because his RJ flight to O'Hare is full.

I'm sure it's a revenue versus PR balancing act for the airlines, but it's not like the people who get involuntary'd generate a lot of revenue.
 
Folks,

I'm not in yield management, but simple economics will help us figure out what is going on here.

I don't know how many people don't make their flights. But it's easy to understand that traffic, longer than expected lines at TSA, gates on the other side of the airport, illness, oversleeping, not planning for the time it takes, etc. will cause many people not to make the flight they have a ticket for.

I've heard the no show number is from 8%-10%, but I have no solid evidence to support this. However, I do believe it's close to a valid number.

So if the airline has historical data to demonstrate that 10% of the people booked on a 130 seat aircraft will not show up, it makes perfect sense that they would sell an extra 13 seats. That extra 13 seats can translate into a few hundred or a few thousand dollars in extra revenue for the airline. And that will be on each and every flight. That ticket revenue is going to be hard to give up although fee revenue (baggage, etc) would not be as attractive to the airline other than change fees.

I know certain airlines overbook by about 8-10% without any disclosure to the passengers. Most of the time, it works out and everyone gets a seat.

But I have seen a disturbing trend lately with American. American is one of the airlines that overbooks without any disclosure. However once American has overbooked to the 10% number, they will start to sell up to a dozen standby overbooked tickets per flight with full disclosure to the passenger purchasing the ticket. They tell the passenger the plane is oversold and they will sell them a standby ticket and they most likely will not get on unless other passengers do not show up. In effect, American is overbooking their flights by 20%. This is filling every seat on the plane. They are leaving revenue passengers at the gate that are on this standby overbooked ticket.

The negative effect, to us, is that American is leaving most (if not all) of the non-revs at the gate because of these standby overbooked tickets.

Makes it hard to get to work.
 
We're forgetting the damage caused to the brand every day when someone has to get off a flight to make room. Add in the fact it can cause delays that snowball with SW's quick turn schedules, and probably an extra half hour of work for a GA, that now may miss a lunch break trying to rebook pax (state penalty now) multiply that by what...100 times a day? You have a lot of time being wasted, and a lot of people telling friends how SW overbooked another flight.

Now SW gets to market the hell out of this and look like the good guys, which will probably translate to more tickets and more word of mouth reputation.

Now add in the hundreds of last minute business travelers on SW that changed the ticket 10 minutes before door closing or finished buying the ticket while they drove into the airport, commuters, those that missed a flight and everyone else that now gets a seat? Who can be mad at this?
 
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Cool, but they are still going to have to remove passengers for crew members when the weather goes downhill and they have to get crew members in place to avoid cancellations. Isn't this what got us here in the first place.
 
T/O w/FSII said:
We're forgetting the damage caused to the brand every day when someone has to get off a flight to make room. Add in the fact it can cause delays that snowball with SW's quick turn schedules, and probably an extra half hour of work for a GA, that now may miss a lunch break trying to rebook pax (state penalty now) multiply that by what...100 times a day? You have a lot of time being wasted, and a lot of people telling friends how SW overbooked another flight.

Now SW gets to market the hell out of this and look like the good guys, which will probably translate to more tickets and more word of mouth reputation.

Now add in the hundreds of last minute business travelers on SW that changed the ticket 10 minutes before door closing or finished buying the ticket while they drove into the airport, commuters, those that missed a flight and everyone else that now gets a seat? Who can be mad at this?
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The ironic thing about SWA's statement is they have traditionally had the lowest load factor % of all the major carriers.
 
JOEFRIDAY2 said:
Folks,

I'm not in yield management, but simple economics will help us figure out what is going on here.

I don't know how many people don't make their flights. But it's easy to understand that traffic, longer than expected lines at TSA, gates on the other side of the airport, illness, oversleeping, not planning for the time it takes, etc. will cause many people not to make the flight they have a ticket for.

I've heard the no show number is from 8%-10%, but I have no solid evidence to support this. However, I do believe it's close to a valid number.

So if the airline has historical data to demonstrate that 10% of the people booked on a 130 seat aircraft will not show up, it makes perfect sense that they would sell an extra 13 seats. That extra 13 seats can translate into a few hundred or a few thousand dollars in extra revenue for the airline. And that will be on each and every flight. That ticket revenue is going to be hard to give up although fee revenue (baggage, etc) would not be as attractive to the airline other than change fees.

I know certain airlines overbook by about 8-10% without any disclosure to the passengers. Most of the time, it works out and everyone gets a seat.

But I have seen a disturbing trend lately with American. American is one of the airlines that overbooks without any disclosure. However once American has overbooked to the 10% number, they will start to sell up to a dozen standby overbooked tickets per flight with full disclosure to the passenger purchasing the ticket. They tell the passenger the plane is oversold and they will sell them a standby ticket and they most likely will not get on unless other passengers do not show up. In effect, American is overbooking their flights by 20%. This is filling every seat on the plane. They are leaving revenue passengers at the gate that are on this standby overbooked ticket.

The negative effect, to us, is that American is leaving most (if not all) of the non-revs at the gate because of these standby overbooked tickets.

Makes it hard to get to work.
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AA doesn't sell standby revenue tickets. Your info isn't correct. What you're probably seeing is this.

When purchasing a ticket, if unwilling to pay the upgrade fee (or if you company doesn't have an agreement that allows booking of those seats without paying the fee like my wife's does) you won't be assigned a seat at booking. You will be assigned one when checking in or at the gate prior to boarding. But you have a seat available on the flight. They hold the upgraded seats for people willing to purchase those vs. let them go as free up until departure time.

8%-10% is really high. On almost all of AA flights I've looked up they allow for ~2 additional seats to be sold. And that is pretty much a max. Even then it's extremely rare they sell more tickets than they have passengers. Normally what happens is you see folks who previously misconnected or missed their earlier flight rolled over to the next flight. That's how you end up with more pax than seats.
 
I used to fly SWA at least 4 times a month for an old employer. Mostly just to the western states. I dont recall a single time a flight wasnt overbooked. Not once. They got creative on crap they would use to convince the pax to trade. They somehow made it fun.
 
mastermags said:
Cool, but they are still going to have to remove passengers for crew members when the weather goes downhill and they have to get crew members in place to avoid cancellations. Isn't this what got us here in the first place.
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Yes, you are absolutely correct. I would point out that in 2016, per the table below (with source article linked), JetBlue had the 4th highest occurrence of involuntary denied boarding's in the industry -- and they have a "no overselling" policy. This is purely a marketing play that will not fix the fundamental issue - a nice marketing grab though.


upload_2017-5-3_19-38-37.png



http://www.stltoday.com/business/in...tml_a7a7eb16-7356-53eb-9518-3ac1c7746342.html
 
wheelsup said:
AA doesn't sell standby revenue tickets. Your info isn't correct. What you're probably seeing is this.

When purchasing a ticket, if unwilling to pay the upgrade fee (or if you company doesn't have an agreement that allows booking of those seats without paying the fee like my wife's does) you won't be assigned a seat at booking. You will be assigned one when checking in or at the gate prior to boarding. But you have a seat available on the flight. They hold the upgraded seats for people willing to purchase those vs. let them go as free up until departure time.

8%-10% is really high. On almost all of AA flights I've looked up they allow for ~2 additional seats to be sold. And that is pretty much a max. Even then it's extremely rare they sell more tickets than they have passengers. Normally what happens is you see folks who previously misconnected or missed their earlier flight rolled over to the next flight. That's how you end up with more pax than seats.
Click to expand...

You need to dig deeper into this and pull up the priority list to see what is going on. It's there if you look for it.
 
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