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Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

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Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#261

Post by bmohlenhoff »

ghaff wrote: post #136
HarryHirsch wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could they have averted disaster with money? It's astounding that there were no volunteers when they offered USD 800 for a seat, 800 dollars is a nice sum. Every single passenger on that airplane thought there was a catch involved, they were getting again 800 dollars in airline vouchers, which everyone knows have big gotchas attached. The airline has a trust problem, which won't improve anytime soon.

My understanding is that the next flight was something like the following afternoon. Business travelers are basically not going to voluntarily take a later flight at all. With respect to vouchers, most people don't travel all that much so a 1 yr. voucher isn't worth much. But offer cash (or a voucher at 2x) and you'll get people at some point.

> Business travelers are basically not going to voluntarily take a later flight at all.

This. As a business traveler, I don't know how I would justify this to my finance department and/or management. It would take too much effort to justify the change in travel plans for a shitty voucher that I'd probably never be able to redeem.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#262

Post by pharrlax »

gregschlom wrote: post #17

I have a question for the HN crowd: what would happen if airlines sold their seats at a fixed price and let customers resell them? For the sake of the discussion let's assume that all seats are in the same class (ie: economy) - there are no business / first class seats. So the idea would be: 1. All seats are sold at the same price, no matter how early or how late you buy. The price covers all the costs associated wit…

>what would happen if airlines sold their seats at a fixed price and let customers resell them?

Buying airline tickets involves multiple checks to minimize the possibility of the buyer blowing up the plane, and resale on the secondary market will weaken those

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#263

Post by maccard »

toyg wrote: post #91
thesumofall wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really an argument. Profits could have been even higher if they had leveraged overbooking. And some of Ryanair's tickets are certainly below marginal costs - making me wonder if really all fights pay for themselves that easily. My guess why they don't use overbooking: it's really complicated. Both finding the right balance of overbooking as well as managing the procedures at the airport. Ryanair has simply…

> Profits could have been even higher if they had leveraged overbooking. But risk would also be much higher - as you say, handling overbooking correctly is complicated, and when it goes wrong it can go very wrong. Ryanair didn't just renounce revenue, they renounced risk and the costs associated with managing that risk. > And some of Ryanair's tickets are certainly below marginal costs The operational word being some…

Even their normal ticket prices are regularly cheaper than their competitors. I fly a short hop once every six weeks or so (edinburgh to Dublin - maybe 40 minutes). Even the full price tickets for the flight are almost always cheaper than their only competitor on the route (aer lingus). I've noticed this on other European flights too, where they are often 40-50 euro cheaper than their competitor.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#264

Post by kalleboo »

ajmurmann wrote: post #233
WillPostForFood wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter-counter point: Southwest boards faster, by far, than airlines using the standard pre-assigned method. That means less time sitting on the plane, or waiting to board the place. Also means less abuse of selling seat upgrades.

I listened to a radio interview many years ago with a physicist who had done simulations to find the optimal boarding strategy. Once he explained it it was totally obvious. The biggest time waster is waiting for people in front of you to finish putting up their luggage so that they step out of the ail and you can get to your seat. The boarding strategy most airlines employ of boarding people at the same time who sit…

Mythbusters also did a segment on boarding efficiency. Their conclusion that "back to front" boarding was the slowest, and "no assigned seats" was the fastest, but that passengers hated boarding with no assigned seats. Window-middle-aisle boarding was second-fastest.

My experience is that American passengers are just terrible. Planes here in Japan board so quickly in comparison, with a standard back-to-front boarding.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#265

Post by wccrawford »

rangibaby wrote: post #226
flukus wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should I be able to sell you a car, have you pay for a car, have you come to collect the car and then tell you there's no car?

In this case, you're in the car, ready to go. Wait! I need that car so my brother can drop his kids off at their grandparents house a state over. You don't want to give it back? Tough, the police are on my side. Thanks for your understanding. Here's an $800 voucher for the next time you buy a car off me.

"This case" was an unusual incident. The majority of overbooking is handled before anyone enters the plane.

So while your analogy works for the doctor who was dragged off the plane, it doesn't work for the overbooking system in the air travel industry as a whole.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#266

Post by phil21 »

spiraldancing wrote: post #254
ajdlinux wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could trivially spend it on a single international holiday if you felt like flying in business or first class...

Actually no, you can't, because they limit how much you can apply to a single flight. To use up $10k in vouchers, it's likely you'd need to make 20-100 flights, before they expired in a year.

Where is this information coming from?

I've received large (not $10k) vouchers from major airlines before, and the only restriction is the expiration date.

They are effectively the same as cash for that airline, and I have yet to see a VDB voucher that is significantly restricted.

Airlines do give away a lot of "good will" certificates during irrops (e.g. weather events) to upset customers, which function more like coupons than traditional vouchers.

I'm happy to be proven wrong, but checking with a few friends who between us fly all the major US carriers - VDB vouchers are effectively airline cash with an expiration date.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#267

Post by heavymark »

Seems odd that the airlines keep talking about overbooking but while yes overbooking is an issue, it's not this issue. This issue is that UA wasn't overbooked but rather allowed someone to get kicked off who was already boarded because late staff wanted to catch a free ride.

JetBlue doesn't overbook, but they have removed passengers already boarded who have not violated any rules, other than they wanted to accommodate other passenger(s).

Overbooking is an issue, and they should either stop overbooking (though that means potentially higher ticket costs for everyone), or when they do overbook make sure they don't start boarding everyone until someone has agreed to not fly and offer the appropriate amount to get someone not to fly, such as the max amount or cash rather than a voucher. But once again, that's a different discussion, and SW and others should focus on the bigger issue at hand that UA violated.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#268

Post by corobo »

johngalt wrote: post #57

The problem isn't overbooking. The problem is not auctioning the seats higher when overbooked. I've seen a number of overbooked southwest flights and people can't line up fast enough for a $300 flight credit + next available flight. I can't imagine it ever going over $1k. IMHO if any airline should continue overbooking it's SWA. No first class, no assigned seats. Most of the flights are short range with multiple flig…

Do people really miss their flights so often that overbooking isn't often an issue or do a lot of flights have people that need to wait for the next one?

As someone that's never flown it's surprising to me that overbooking is even a thing airlines do, who's out there missing their flights? I can't even imagine cancelling a pre-booked taxi never mind a flight!

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#269

Post by maxerickson »

heavymark wrote: post #267

Seems odd that the airlines keep talking about overbooking but while yes overbooking is an issue, it's not this issue. This issue is that UA wasn't overbooked but rather allowed someone to get kicked off who was already boarded because late staff wanted to catch a free ride. JetBlue doesn't overbook, but they have removed passengers already boarded who have not violated any rules, other than they wanted to accommodat…

The employees were flying at the direction of the airline, in order to staff a flight elsewhere.

So it wasn't really about what the employees themselves wanted or not.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#270

Post by nommm-nommm »

zeroer wrote: post #129
johngalt wrote: post #57

The problem isn't overbooking. The problem is not auctioning the seats higher when overbooked. I've seen a number of overbooked southwest flights and people can't line up fast enough for a $300 flight credit + next available flight. I can't imagine it ever going over $1k. IMHO if any airline should continue overbooking it's SWA. No first class, no assigned seats. Most of the flights are short range with multiple flig…

Yea, I agree the problem is not auctioning seats high enough. But the proximate issue is that United didn't offer cash, but $800 in United Fun Bux that are worthless for most people. The vouchers they were offering were only valid at dates United decided. The vouchers expired after a year. And they are offered in coupons for which you can only use one coupon per flight, and the excess value is lost. Practically all n…

>$800 in United Fun Bux

Yeah, exactly. They damn well know there is a 90+% chance you aren't going to be able to redeem it. Literally.

http://www.seattletimes.com/life/travel/travel-wise-donrsquo...

>Redemption rates on vouchers hover somewhere between 5 percent and 8 percent

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