Who’s most likely to be bumped off an overbooked flight?
A video of a man being dragged off an overbooked flight on United Airlines enroute from Chicago to Louisville has gone viral and sparked outrage on the Internet. The airline wanted four passengers to volunteer to disembark to make room for crew members.
This ignited a multitude of questions in everyone’s minds: “Why should a paying customer be made to leave?” “Why did they not leave space for crew members?” “Why sell tickets if you do not have the space available?”
You would think that “sold out” means “sold out”, so why would airlines sell flight tickets for seats that they do not actually have? Is it unfair or a cheating practice? Are they deceiving customers?
Why do airlines overbook?
It all boils down to money and profits. Overbooking means to allow more passengers to purchase seats on a particular flight than there are actually available. This is not something only United Airlines does, though their method of handling the situation leaves much to be desired. Many airlines overbook and it is very much the industry practice.
CNBC reports that overbooking flights is fairly standard in the airline industry and is completely legal. Based on profit margins, the practice is likely to continue. It maximises the airline’s profits, as they calculate a percentage of people who will not show up for their purchased flights. If the airline sold a seat but the person does not turn up for it, it is an empty seat. Hence, it could have been an opportunity for the airline to sell it to someone else and generate more revenue.
In short, it’s a way to ensure that they are making the most money for every seat.
“Airline overbooking is necessary as airlines need to ensure that they are not flying with empty seats,” expert Alex Macheras explained to MailOnline Travel.
According to Bespoke Investment Group, the reduction in capital expenditures by the airline industry means they do not want to waste money on new equipment for half-full flights.
How do airlines determine how many tickets to sell?
According to CBC News, airlines sell tickets based on statistical analysis of past trends, studying how many passengers will or will not turn up for their flight. They then try to gauge the number of ‘extra’ tickets to sell in order to reap in the most rewards. In an industry that can run at a profit margin of as little as 1 percent, this is pertinent.
The projection changes with events, seasons and holidays. If there is a major event happening, say you bought Coldplay concert tickets in Bangkok, the chances of you not turning up for your flight is lower than if you were just going to Thailand for fun. That is because you probably will not want to miss your concert. This is similar to the situation in America when there is the Super Bowl game going on. Airlines then adjust their percentage of allowing overbooking accordingly.
A statistician who works at a major airline, who wants to be only known as George, told TechCrunch: “We see a huge spike around Thanksgiving and Christmas. When people fly home for the holidays, the number of people who fail to use their tickets drop significantly.”
However, there is no exact formula to predicting everything so if more people than they anticipated turn up for their allocated flights, overbooking happens.
“In other words: crowded flights and occasional conflict over seats is likely here to stay. Bad for travellers, but good for the airlines,” said Bespoke.
Airlines naturally try to balance profits and customer satisfaction. They try to get as little margin of error as possible and minimise miscalculation.
Some airlines offer anywhere from a couple hundred to thousands of dollars per passenger to ditch their intended flight. Obviously, if you are on a relaxing holiday and don’t mind switching plans, some extra spending money would be welcomed. However, if you have something urgent to attend like a family member’s funeral or a doctor seeing his patients — as in the case of the infamous United Flight 3411 — that would not fly well with you.
George said, “It is far cheaper to give someone a $500 travel voucher every now and again than letting planes fly at less than full capacity.”
Air Canada pays from $200, $400 or $800 per passenger, depending on whether the delay is less than two hours, between two and six hours, or more than six hours.
Delta Airlines once paid a family $11,000 to get bumped from their flights from New York to Florida. According to Forbes, a recent study analysed data from the Department of Transportation‘s March 2017 Air Travel Consumer Report and found that Delta is most likely to pay people for volunteering their seats, compensating 10 out of every 10,000 bumped passengers. While getting $11,000 is very rare, you can see why some people would not mind earning a few extra bucks to change your travel plans, especially if you do not have anything urgent.
What if airlines don’t overbook?
If airlines do not overbook, they would need to make up for the lost revenue through higher ticket prices for everyone — and nobody likes that.
Charles Leocha, chairman and co-founder of the consumer advocacy group Travelers United, told Time magazine that airlines usually do a good job on compensating the people that get bumped off an overbooked flight. Many are willing to get bribed with monetary rewards to change their plans.
“People who are actually bumped and are really irritated about it are almost nonexistent — it’s a tiny percentage,” he said. “But the people who want lower prices are around 100 per cent.”
Who gets bumped?
Each carrier usually has their own guidelines on how to settle an overbooking incident. Many airlines would ask for volunteers to get bumped, dangling enticing rewards in front of them.
In the case of the infamous United Airlines incident, passengers were offered US$800 to voluntarily get off their flights, but no one budged. The airline then picked four random people. Three got up. The fourth was the man in the viral video, a 69-year-old physician named Dr. Dao.
Some normal practices are also that if a flight was overbooked by “two seats”, then the last two passengers to check in or reach the gate will be denied boarding. Usually these passengers would be more understanding, as they are the ones who were the latest anyway. They will then be given replacement flights.
Vast majority of bumping cases happen at the check-in gate, which is way before the boarding process. This makes sense as the person is less likely to be infuriated by letting them have the candy they bought, then taking it away from them.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, some will bump passengers with the lowest fares first, or based on the passenger’s fare class, itinerary and frequent flyer membership. This means that those in business or first class will likely avoid being booted off.