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Air Canada agents reveal overselling practices

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Re: Air Canada agents reveal overselling practices

#31

Post by kortilla »

tomhoward wrote: post #24

It's been discussed on HN before [1], but it's worth mentioning in this thread that there's a YC-backed company – Volantio – working to solve this specific problem. Most airlines' position is that they have to oversell flights, otherwise planes will fly with empty seats unnecessarily. But from passengers' point of view, there aren't always enough people who'll voluntarily accept an offer to transfer to a different fl…

>But from passengers' point of view, few people are willing to voluntarily accept an offer to transfer to a different flight once they are at the gate awaiting boarding, even if the offer is quite generous.

This is blatantly false. I fly all the time and I see this happen about every other time at a neighboring gate. Gate agent announced flight is oversold, makes an offer. Several people volunteer. End of story.

You don’t hear about these events because they (used to) happen hundreds of times a day all over the US with no hassle.

Then the stupidity of United and the ignorant backlash of the public ruined it. Infrequent fliers associated overselling with the United incident and completely ignored the functioning 99.9% of cases that benefited all fliers overall.

Volantio’s product is ok, but it’s not a substitute to the problem overbooking was solving, nor is it better for passengers who were flexible with last minute changes (because the offers are worse since rebooks days in advance don’t solve the last minute flex fare changes).

Ugh, sorry about the rant but this whole oversale thing is a perfect example of the outrage culture damaging a mostly functional market due to sheer ignorance.

Re: Air Canada agents reveal overselling practices

#32

Post by cjbprime »

stygiansonic wrote: post #2

Supposedly this is a company internal document[0], which states: Air Canada Revenue Management’s team is tasked with ensuring that the maximum revenue potential is made on each and every flight we operate. As it is known that a certain percentage of confirmed customers do not show for their flights, it is sometimes necessary to sell more seats than aircraft capacity. Revenue Management uses a sophisticated system tha…

That's just a description of overselling. What's unique to Air Canada about this story? Do the other airlines do this too?

Re: Air Canada agents reveal overselling practices

#33

Post by elyobo »

hndamien wrote: post #30
tomhoward wrote: post #24

It's been discussed on HN before [1], but it's worth mentioning in this thread that there's a YC-backed company – Volantio – working to solve this specific problem. Most airlines' position is that they have to oversell flights, otherwise planes will fly with empty seats unnecessarily. But from passengers' point of view, there aren't always enough people who'll voluntarily accept an offer to transfer to a different fl…

Well done, Adioso was fantastic.

Indeed - I still use it (among others) more or less any time I'm looking for flights.

It was tomhoward's cofounder Fenn Bailey that also first introduced me to "microcaching" with nginx via some blog post many years back, a trick which has been of much use over the years.

Re: Air Canada agents reveal overselling practices

#34

Post by elyobo »

throw_away2 wrote: post #29
jnordwick wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US airlines make on avg $17.75 per passenger with a profit margin of about 9%. http://money.com/money/5158363/airline-profit-per-passenger/ That's pretty far from greedy.

The very next sentence after that quote is: > This per-passenger profit is roughly double what airlines around the world make per passenger, according to the International Air Transport Association

I was thinking 9% is a pretty decent return!

Re: Air Canada agents reveal overselling practices

#35

Post by tomhoward »

kortilla wrote: post #31
tomhoward wrote: post #24

It's been discussed on HN before [1], but it's worth mentioning in this thread that there's a YC-backed company – Volantio – working to solve this specific problem. Most airlines' position is that they have to oversell flights, otherwise planes will fly with empty seats unnecessarily. But from passengers' point of view, there aren't always enough people who'll voluntarily accept an offer to transfer to a different fl…

>But from passengers' point of view, few people are willing to voluntarily accept an offer to transfer to a different flight once they are at the gate awaiting boarding, even if the offer is quite generous. This is blatantly false. I fly all the time and I see this happen about every other time at a neighboring gate. Gate agent announced flight is oversold, makes an offer. Several people volunteer. End of story. You…

Fair enough, I've toned down that sentence.

That said, though I can sympathise with the frustration, I've learned that sentiments like "ignorant backlash of the public" and "outrage culture damaging a mostly functional market due to sheer ignorance" don't get us to good solutions.

As you said, the problem is a real one, and Volantio has shown that it can be significantly reduced through smart application of technology well before departure time.

Re: Air Canada agents reveal overselling practices

#36

Post by tomhoward »

hndamien wrote: post #30
tomhoward wrote: post #24

It's been discussed on HN before [1], but it's worth mentioning in this thread that there's a YC-backed company – Volantio – working to solve this specific problem. Most airlines' position is that they have to oversell flights, otherwise planes will fly with empty seats unnecessarily. But from passengers' point of view, there aren't always enough people who'll voluntarily accept an offer to transfer to a different fl…

Well done, Adioso was fantastic.

Many thanks. BTW, Adioso is not dead, it's resting. We spun it out of Volantio so I could rebuild it only without all the mistakes. Stay tuned.

Re: Air Canada agents reveal overselling practices

#37

Post by tomhoward »

elyobo wrote: post #33
hndamien wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well done, Adioso was fantastic.

Indeed - I still use it (among others) more or less any time I'm looking for flights. It was tomhoward's cofounder Fenn Bailey that also first introduced me to "microcaching" with nginx via some blog post many years back, a trick which has been of much use over the years.

Awesome, great to hear!

That micro-caching trick was so cool. It wasn't actually for Adioso, but for the Falls Festival, a huge New Years Eve outdoor music festival here in Australia. The coolest application we heard about for that technique was when Google did a doodle for Robert Moog's 78th Birthday [1], and the Moog company's humble little website got hammered.

[1] https://www.google.com/doodles/robert-moogs-78th-birthday

Re: Air Canada agents reveal overselling practices

#38

Post by jayalpha »

kortilla wrote: post #31
tomhoward wrote: post #24

It's been discussed on HN before [1], but it's worth mentioning in this thread that there's a YC-backed company – Volantio – working to solve this specific problem. Most airlines' position is that they have to oversell flights, otherwise planes will fly with empty seats unnecessarily. But from passengers' point of view, there aren't always enough people who'll voluntarily accept an offer to transfer to a different fl…

>But from passengers' point of view, few people are willing to voluntarily accept an offer to transfer to a different flight once they are at the gate awaiting boarding, even if the offer is quite generous. This is blatantly false. I fly all the time and I see this happen about every other time at a neighboring gate. Gate agent announced flight is oversold, makes an offer. Several people volunteer. End of story. You…

"Then the stupidity of United and the ignorant backlash of the public ruined it. Infrequent fliers associated overselling with the United incident and completely ignored the functioning 99.9% of cases that benefited all fliers overall."

The United incident had nothing to do with overbooking.

Re: Air Canada agents reveal overselling practices

#39

Post by cameldrv »

I've had an extremely bad experience with Air Canada that's eerily consistent with this article. Upgrade to business at the ticket counter, assigned seats, and then a red light and a sad noise from the ticket machine when I tried to board. Then a torrent of excuses, blame shifting, and rude behavior. This really soured me on Air Canada.

Re: Air Canada agents reveal overselling practices

#40

Post by refurb »

kortilla wrote: post #31
tomhoward wrote: post #24

It's been discussed on HN before [1], but it's worth mentioning in this thread that there's a YC-backed company – Volantio – working to solve this specific problem. Most airlines' position is that they have to oversell flights, otherwise planes will fly with empty seats unnecessarily. But from passengers' point of view, there aren't always enough people who'll voluntarily accept an offer to transfer to a different fl…

>But from passengers' point of view, few people are willing to voluntarily accept an offer to transfer to a different flight once they are at the gate awaiting boarding, even if the offer is quite generous. This is blatantly false. I fly all the time and I see this happen about every other time at a neighboring gate. Gate agent announced flight is oversold, makes an offer. Several people volunteer. End of story. You…

Agreed. It’s pretty rare for the airlines to not find the volunteers they need. Often they need to bump up the comp to get them, but they get them.

In fact, I’ve volunteered a few times. If I’m flying back home to visit family, arriving one day later isn’t a big deal when the airline pays for a hotel room, meals and offers enough comp that I could fly back home twice.

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