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Air Canada agents reveal overselling practices

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Re: Air Canada agents reveal overselling practices

#131

Post by amdavidson »

yardie wrote: post #118
lisper wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the Right Answer is for the airlines to sell two different ticket classes: guaranteed seats, which may not be oversold, and standby seats, which can be. That way everyone knows what they're getting.

Standby seats will just jam up the airport and security. Most shoppers will search for the cheapest flight, the airline will sell it as a bargain with the requisite disclaimers that no one reads, and when 100 standby ticket holders show up to the airport all hell will break lose. Do remember you can't pass security without a confirmed seat. They can't load your luggage without you being confirmed and through security…

You absolutely can and many do pass security without a confirmed seat.

That's the practice in the article, passing ticket holders along and telling them the seat will be assigned at the gate, well after baggage is checked and security lines have been waited.

Selling standby seats at the same/similar overbook ratio as they currently do wouldn't lead to any more of a dystopia then we currently have.

Re: Air Canada agents reveal overselling practices

#132

Post by deathanatos »

wlll wrote: post #103
mruts wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen some very lucrative offers. Like $500 credit, upgrade to first class tomorrow, AND a 4-star hotel room. That might not be the norm, but that's a pretty amazing deal.

I was held at checkin for an Economy Plus BA flight from San Diego to London and they asked for volunteers to get the next flight (same time the next day) and you would get $800 cash (prepaid credit card) and a hotel room for the night. A few people took the offer, I didn't. As a result they denied me boarding and gave me the exact same deal, except it was a $1250 pre-paid credit card. I never expected to be quite so…

At least in the US, involuntarily getting bumped from a flight requires mandatory compensation in some instances (if the arrival delay is >1 hour): https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/aviation-consumer...

Re: Air Canada agents reveal overselling practices

#133

Post by useful »

hinkley wrote: post #49
useful wrote: post #20

If the plane was big enough and flights were booked more than a year in advance they would use actuary tables to be better at overselling flights. I've worked for airlines so that they could do this, including Air Canada. Yield management is how airlines live and die.

I recall having a leg of my flight cancelled for mechanical issues. They sent the entire plane full of people to the ticket agent and somehow they miraculously found planes for everybody on the next two flights, same day, same airline. A few of us commented on how convenient it was that the plane needed maintenance and three flights on the same route were only 2/3rds full. What are the odds, he asked sarcastically.

Airlines are built around operations and scheduling. Some disruption/reaccommodation software is quite advanced and even takes load factor, cost, status, and customer LTV into account. Being able to reorganize entire schedules onto other planes and other airlines in minutes while still maintaining a 1-3% profit margin is non-trivial.

Re: Air Canada agents reveal overselling practices

#134

Post by K9DRDOh »

Air Canada is one of the worst airlines I have ever had the displeasure to fly.

I had this exact experience a few weeks ago with Air Canada out of Vancouver. I ended up with the dreaded GTE on my boarding pass, buy essentially refusing to be extorted ( paying for preferred seating)

You would think, buying the damn ticket entitles you to a seat, but not in Air Canada, unless you are willing to pay extra.

the most recent time I had this issue, The office travel coordinator booked my flight, I got an email asking me to go online and select a seat. except the system wanted to charge me $15 to select a preferred seat, and no option to select a seat without paying extra.

I actually called customer support and they told me, the only way you can be guaranteed a seat, without paying extra for it is to wait and login to their website exactly 24 hours before the flight and manually choose a seat.

otherwise you will not be guaranteed a seat and will be on standby and assigned a seat at the gate.

It felt like extortion, and is one of the sleaziest companies I have ever dealt with.

unfortunately, I cannot book my own business trips, and it takes a while for the new travel coordinators to believe me when I tell them "I would rather crawl across the country then fly on Air Canada"

Re: Air Canada agents reveal overselling practices

#135

Post by Firadeoclus »

rlpb wrote: post #121
majortennis wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know who you work for . But you care too much about corporate profits and not enough about humans

I'm not employed in any related industry. I do travel for work, so if anything I'm more impacted on the consumer side as a frequent traveller. However, the consumer has voted, again and again, for cheaper airline tickets over anything else. If that's what they want, then banning overselling would be contrary to that as it would cause ticket prices to rise. I live in the EU and am quite happy with the current statutor…

I'm ambivalent about overselling, but I think your argument is flawed. Consumers can only "vote" for what's on offer, and you cannot individually escape a prisoner's dilemma/race to the bottom scenario without making yourself worse off.

Re: Air Canada agents reveal overselling practices

#136

Post by Firadeoclus »

skookumchuck wrote: post #22
jtchang wrote: post #9

I'm not surprised airlines do this. I don't think it is just Air Canada. In a way it makes sense but it does make me think they are a bit greedy. If someone buys a ticket and does not show up for a flight then usually they don't get a refund/credit (or a crappy one: I'm looking at you United). But now the airline has an empty seat. The best thing to do is fill it. But you can't fill it the last moment so you need to…

If airplanes routinely fly with empty seats, that means they need more airplanes flying to move the passengers. This isn't very environmentally friendly. People should support airplanes flying full.

Full-ish, yes. But optimising for efficiency always comes at a cost to resilience, and bumping passengers at the last minute has real environmental and wellbeing costs, too.

Re: Air Canada agents reveal overselling practices

#137

Post by rlpb »

Firadeoclus wrote: post #135
rlpb wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not employed in any related industry. I do travel for work, so if anything I'm more impacted on the consumer side as a frequent traveller. However, the consumer has voted, again and again, for cheaper airline tickets over anything else. If that's what they want, then banning overselling would be contrary to that as it would cause ticket prices to rise. I live in the EU and am quite happy with the current statutor…

I'm ambivalent about overselling, but I think your argument is flawed. Consumers can only "vote" for what's on offer, and you cannot individually escape a prisoner's dilemma/race to the bottom scenario without making yourself worse off.

I agree and this is what I meant by "The downside is that a free market isn't very good at adjusting to unlikely individual events" above.

Since banning overselling would increase ticket prices, there will inevitably be some passengers who would suffer as a result. Statistically we'd find that some passengers can no longer afford to go on holiday, etc. These passengers surely want a cheaper ticket so they have _some_ opportunity still.

Instead, I think the most reasonable solution is to allow oversell but enforce adequate compensation by statute, which is what we have today in many places.

The difficulty is in deciding what constitutes adequate compensation. Too much and we'll be back to the "no oversell but inefficient and therefore high ticket price" situation. Too little and traveling would be a mandatory gamble that passengers might be wiped out (eg. a weekend away ruined with no compensation to go again another time, etc). A balance is needed. Banning overselling completely however is I think too far in the wrong direction.

Re: Air Canada agents reveal overselling practices

#138

Post by thelasthuman »

stubish wrote: post #115
FearNotDaniel wrote: post #67

Is this only a North American thing? I've flown hundreds of times within Europe over the last few years, and every single time I've had a seat assigned at online check in, usually 24-72hrs before boarding depending on airline. I've seen lines of standby passengers at Frankfurt, waiting at the gate just in case they get lucky at the last minute, but knowing in advance that they don't have a seat on that plane unless s…

I hit an overbooked flight in Europe last year (Air France, intercontinental flight out of Paris). I suspect it happens a lot less than in North America, because there is a mandatory payment of 600 Euro per passenger if you get to the departure gate but are denied boarding to the plane. There may be other mandatory requirements depending on how quickly they can get you to your destination. I got a few hours delay and…

> I suspect it happens a lot less than in North America, because there is a mandatory payment of 600 Euro per passenger if you get to the departure gate but are denied boarding to the plane

Is there anything that keeps the fine increasing alongside inflation?

Re: Air Canada agents reveal overselling practices

#139

Post by K9DRDOh »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #100

I am not sure how much article is misrepresenting the seriousness. I travel air Canada 30+ times a year. GTE strictly means what it says - you don't have seat assigned and you may get one at the gate. They cannot help you at the checkin until they know who all is boarding. So from that perspective strictly, I understand that sending them to gate to await their destiny,rather than try to resolve at the checkin counter…

"Article also doesn't advise strongly enough to do an online or early checkin."

What is not clear from your statement is that, if you try to check in online, you must pay for seat selection, unless You check in to the website 'exactly' 24 hours before your flight, even a few minutes earlier you have to pay extra just to get a damn seat.

there is no option for "I dont care just give me any seat"

you do not have the option of checking in and choosing a seat at the time of purchasing your ticket. I dont know about you but that feels like they just want to charge me extra unless I jump through ridiculous hoops just to get a seat for a ticket that I have already paid for.

I have been put on GTE for exactly this reason at least 6 times in the last year, and have not eventually been given a seat only once and bumped to the next flight

Re: Air Canada agents reveal overselling practices

#140

Post by skookumchuck »

Firadeoclus wrote: post #136
skookumchuck wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If airplanes routinely fly with empty seats, that means they need more airplanes flying to move the passengers. This isn't very environmentally friendly. People should support airplanes flying full.

Full-ish, yes. But optimising for efficiency always comes at a cost to resilience, and bumping passengers at the last minute has real environmental and wellbeing costs, too.

> wellbeing

Ok, so environmentalism doesn't matter if it's inconvenient.

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