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Ask HN: Why were names of other passengers appearing in my flight details?

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Re: Ask HN: Why were names of other passengers appearing in my flight details?

#11

Post by philwelch »

cjrp wrote: post #7
artmageddon wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm - a very close friend of mine who is a flight attendant on JetBlue who has helped me out with numerous flights using his buddy passes, gave me insight into this. Basically, airlines are allowed to oversell because historically, a number of people will miss flights by differing margins, and this helps recover potential losses for those who do miss their flights. Works great when people normally miss their…

I never understood this explanation; if you miss your flight, do you get a refund? If not, the airline are still getting paid so shouldn't be booking the same seat twice.

Why get paid once for a seat when you can get paid twice?

Re: Ask HN: Why were names of other passengers appearing in my flight details?

#12

Post by notahacker »

nachi wrote: post #10

This is most definitely a bug on Google's side in parsing the passenger names out of the booking email from Germanwings. I experienced something similar, Google thought that the Geschäftfuhrung (management) at the bottom of the booking email were my co-passengers: http://i.imgur.com/I8V4ZQN.png (In this case, Thomas Lindner and Dr. Jochen Wallisch)

I think you've probably nailed it.

Looking at the mostly-redacted names OP's screenshot I suspect the additional "passengers" Google's email has picked up are actually Dr Axel Schmidt and Oliver Wagner from Germanwings' executive board? Am I right?

Re: Ask HN: Why were names of other passengers appearing in my flight details?

#13

Post by scottmcdot »

notahacker wrote: post #12
nachi wrote: post #10

This is most definitely a bug on Google's side in parsing the passenger names out of the booking email from Germanwings. I experienced something similar, Google thought that the Geschäftfuhrung (management) at the bottom of the booking email were my co-passengers: http://i.imgur.com/I8V4ZQN.png (In this case, Thomas Lindner and Dr. Jochen Wallisch)

I think you've probably nailed it. Looking at the mostly-redacted names OP's screenshot I suspect the additional "passengers" Google's email has picked up are actually Dr Axel Schmidt and Oliver Wagner from Germanwings' executive board? Am I right?

Yes you are right! I presumed it was this guy [0]. Nice to have put this to bed.

[0] http://www.neuro.univie.ac.at/

Re: Ask HN: Why were names of other passengers appearing in my flight details?

#14

Post by cekstam »

cjrp wrote: post #7
artmageddon wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm - a very close friend of mine who is a flight attendant on JetBlue who has helped me out with numerous flights using his buddy passes, gave me insight into this. Basically, airlines are allowed to oversell because historically, a number of people will miss flights by differing margins, and this helps recover potential losses for those who do miss their flights. Works great when people normally miss their…

I never understood this explanation; if you miss your flight, do you get a refund? If not, the airline are still getting paid so shouldn't be booking the same seat twice.

If they had not overbooked it, would the flight price been the same (for you)?
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