Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 335 posts

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#111

Post by SilasX »

bilboa wrote: post #106
beamatronic wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible to sell an overbook and a non-overbook class of tickets separately, and clearly delineate that to the customer as such?

Yes, that's what "standby" tickets basically are. Some airlines would (not sure it's still a thing) sell you a "standby" ticket for cheaper than a normal ticket, which meant you show up and wait at the gate until near departure time, and then if there are any seats available they let you on the plane. If not you have to wait for the next flight.

Yeah, but the problem is that most tickets are now, in effect, standby, but not labeled as such. Hence why the parent suggested making the status (and the option to upgrade) clearer and more readily available.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#112

Post by LeifCarrotson »

ewanm89 wrote: post #53
jrockway wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that it's not intrinsically essential. To an airline, a flight that leaves with an empty seat is basically throwing money away; that empty seat doesn't mean you can take less fuel, fewer flight crew members, or wear out the airplane less. Therefore, the empty seat saves the airline no money. Furthermore, people often miss their flights. Overbooking is one way to deal with these two assumptions. Assume a…

Well, there is more fuel left in the tank, so there is less on the refill so yes it does save fuel, not much but it does save some. I prefer no refunds for no-show policy myself, that is how it works when I buy a ticket to see a play. Now refundable upto 48 hours before the flight might be even fairer.

The fuel increase is marginal. You still have to burn fuel to carry that fuel to the next airport. And you have to carry the airframe with capacity for that empty seat. The 100 kg for a passenger+luggage is much less than the fractional weight of the plane required to carry them!

For some numbers, a 777-200 carries 313 passengers, weighs 135k kg, carries up to 100k kg of fuel, and has a max takeoff weight of about 250k kg. 313 passengers and luggage, averaging 100kg, weigh just 31.3k kg. Your ticket therefore pays for your weight, plus 5x your weight in airplane structure, plus (up to) 3x your weight in fuel.

If you don't show up, they're still carrying 8x your weight anyways, so saving 200kg isn't that important.

(PS: apologies for the 'thousands of kg' units. I thought it was more readable than Mg or fully written out numbers.)

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#114

Post by lisper »

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…

> The problem isn't overbooking. The problem is not auctioning the seats higher when overbooked.

This. Oh so very much this. United could have avoided this whole debacle simply by not imposing price controls on the market for seats when it became a buyer rather than a seller.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#115

Post by davidf18 »

valuearb wrote: post #14
kobeya wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not recently. Costs have plummeted and airlines are one of the more profitable industries these days.

Historically airlines are one of the least profitable businesses in history. A few good years doesn't change that much.

In the US at least, they are now considered as a commodity. But the consolidation of major carriers (American with US Air, United with Continental) may have changed that equation.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#116

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

lisper wrote: post #114
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…

> The problem isn't overbooking. The problem is not auctioning the seats higher when overbooked. This. Oh so very much this. United could have avoided this whole debacle simply by not imposing price controls on the market for seats when it became a buyer rather than a seller.

And they could have offered the passenger free United flights for life and it still would have cost less than this embarrassing and protracted PR catastrophe ever will.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#117

Post by ldiracdelta »

diogenescynic wrote: post #94
aresant wrote: post #12

This response feels knee jerk. It's been demonstrated in countless other threads (1) and articles (2) how economically important it is to overbook. Overbooking is central to airline profitability and their ability to provide flexibility - like partial refunds, or SW's "open tickets" policy on business select. As a consumer I appreciate these things and find them incredibly useful. United's response of "We'll push the…

>how economically important it is to overbook. I still don't believe this claim. A 727 seats 129, a 787 seats 290, and a 747 seats 366. That means it only makes flights slightly less expensive. I only travel a few times a year and I'd rather pay 2% more than get bumped off my flight. Why do we allow airlines to overbook but not movie theaters or other industries? This seems like an artificial advantage we've given th…

If theaters had an escalating buyback price for their tickets, I could be persuaded to, say, not see the next Star Wars movie for $100 and then see it later. I have a price. Most people do.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#118

Post by kingnothing »

Cyph0n wrote: post #110
pauldino wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've restricted it slightly: now you have to notify them at least 10 minutes before the flight. But still no penalties - I really hope they don't have to do away with that policy since that's the main thing I like about Southwest.

That's still better than most other airlines. I'll definitely be considering SW from now on. I'm assuming they only do domestic flights?

They're mostly domestic US with a small offering of routes to the Caribbean, Mexico, and Lat Am.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#119

Post by jessriedel »

gshulegaard wrote: post #101
aresant wrote: post #12

This response feels knee jerk. It's been demonstrated in countless other threads (1) and articles (2) how economically important it is to overbook. Overbooking is central to airline profitability and their ability to provide flexibility - like partial refunds, or SW's "open tickets" policy on business select. As a consumer I appreciate these things and find them incredibly useful. United's response of "We'll push the…

Overbooking is key for maximizing producer surplus. Whether or not that is economically advantageous to the economy as a whole is a different and more complex question. But the notion that a company maximizing it's surplus is _always_ beneficial to consumers is tricky but more likely false within the confines of my limited understanding of contemporary economic theory.

Why do you think the consumer doesn't capture any of the surplus?

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#120

Post by ghaff »

knz wrote: post #99
ewanm89 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there is more fuel left in the tank, so there is less on the refill so yes it does save fuel, not much but it does save some. I prefer no refunds for no-show policy myself, that is how it works when I buy a ticket to see a play. Now refundable upto 48 hours before the flight might be even fairer.

> I prefer no refunds for no-show policy myself, that is how it works when I buy a ticket to see a play. What about if you are flying long haul and linking up to a domestic flight on another airline? "Oh, we can't help you because your previous flight was delayed due to weather/mechanical/congestion.you should have flown on one carrier even if the price was 2x"? Airport congestion is a big issue in the US, as is weat…

There are absolutely circumstances where flights on different carriers end up on different itineraries. Sure, TS is one possible solution in the event of delays but so are processes that make dealing with delays out of the ongoing carrier's control more passenger friendly.
Post reply on HN