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Airlines Are Backing Volantio (YC W09), a Startup That Could Fix Overbooking

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Re: Airlines Are Backing Volantio (YC W09), a Startup That Could Fix Overbooking

#61

Post by classichasclass »

nanis wrote: post #45
bogomipz wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Airlines are very much currently burdened with a legacy that was cemented in sometime in the 50's." Which legacy exactly are they "burdened" with? The airlines in US were deregulated in 1980s. The airlines look nothing like they did in the 1950s. The regulatory regime is gone, there's "power by the hour", fuel futures etc. >"Ultimately, they're given a large multi-dimensional optimisation problem ..." Yes and the a…

These days, it's not the legacy. It is mostly regulation pushed by Chuck Schumer[1]. Predictably, the policy has made it much more profitable to outright cancel flights at the first sign of trouble. Add to that the consolidation that occurred since then, we are left with: > Four carriers with over 80% of domestic capacity: > - Three large, hub-oriented, global legacy carriers (American, United, Delta) > - One large,…

I'm not sure that "cancel[ling] flights at the first sign of trouble" is the issue either.

I had my flight on Air New Zealand cancelled after four hours in the air, forcing us to turn back due to a mechanical problem. After three hours on the ground, they gave up. I ended up with a night's stay in Auckland, a free breakfast, a new flight to LA first thing in the morning and double points. I'll probably be an Air NZ customer for life as a result.

Even United can sometimes rise to the occasion. They cancelled our flight to San Francisco because of SFO's typical shenanigans with fog and not allowing small commuter jets in. We got rebooked the next day, though all they had were economy class seats. We said fine, at least we're on our way. We got upgraded at the gate and we didn't even ask for it.

If a company wants to make customer service a top priority, they can do it.

Re: Airlines Are Backing Volantio (YC W09), a Startup That Could Fix Overbooking

#62

Post by tyingq »

jptman wrote: post #53
tyingq wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a broad brush. Airlines aren't all at the same point in dealing with overbooking. It's also not a trivial issue given the slim margins and complexity. Consider connecting flights, different fare types (refundable or not, advance purchase, etc). Also, differing aircraft types, how many seats they have, and which crews are qualified to fly them. Oh, and weather. If you think the root cause is "airline IT is inco…

I'm not sure I'd call it "failed commercially at solving booking". Google stopped their work on creating a booking system after the acquisition since they were never interested in getting into booking.

They had one small airline (Cape Air) using it for a long time, so I don't quite get your point. It was built, but almost nobody bought it. Google did squash it roughly 2 years after buying ITA, but it was pretty much dead anyway.

Re: Airlines Are Backing Volantio (YC W09), a Startup That Could Fix Overbooking

#63

Post by ggm »

The investment by non-US carriers intrigues me, because there is no significant overbooking problem worldwide: its a mostly US phenomenon as I understand it.

The rebooking-because-cancelled, thats a huge problem anywhere. So, I suspect the JV partners are looking to benefits for unexpected surge loads and overflow from late/dropped flights in a tight jet schedule.

Re: Airlines Are Backing Volantio (YC W09), a Startup That Could Fix Overbooking

#64

Post by monksy »

foepys wrote: post #59
fricat1ve wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a story that checking ID's on plane tickets was at the top of the airlines lobbying wishlist after 9/11 so they could curtail the practice of people selling unused tickets to another (same gender) person.

If you look at the current situation of the market for concert/festival tickets, you can see why this isn't so bad for consumers.

Which both situations are made worse by locking in the consumer and preventing them from backing out of the transaction.

Re: Airlines Are Backing Volantio (YC W09), a Startup That Could Fix Overbooking

#65

Post by tetrazine »

vannevar wrote: post #49
intopieces wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your solution means higher ticket prices overall, which consumers have repeatedly indicated they do not want. Most people don’t get bumped from flights. Most people don’t want to pay x% more to see their family once a year.

The percentage increase in price shouldn't be any greater than the percentage probability of getting bumped from a flight, which as you point out, is relatively low. If every hundredth seat is overbooked on average, then you've got 101 passengers for 100 seats. If they all paid $100, then you could offset the lost revenue from the 101st passenger by charging the remaining passengers $101 each. Not exactly a game chan…

This is absolutely wrong, as many passengers do not make it to a flight, without being bumped. This rate is very high and makes overbooking valuable. The difference in cost includes both the relatively low bumping rate and the relatively high missed/cancelled flight rate. Many routes make very little revenue per flight (not per passenger) after overhead - at times in the hundreds of dollars, if I recall correctly - and would be completely unviable without overbooking.

Re: Airlines Are Backing Volantio (YC W09), a Startup That Could Fix Overbooking

#66

Post by kwhitefoot »

As far as I can tell overbooking is an almost exclusively US phenomenon. In Europe I don't know of anyone who has been 'bumped' off a flight because it was overbooked. Low cost airlines like Ryanair manage to fill flights without overbooking. There is a lot to dislike about Mr O'Leary's company but I don't think anyone worries that their ticket is not going to be honoured.

Re: Airlines Are Backing Volantio (YC W09), a Startup That Could Fix Overbooking

#67

Post by tysonzni »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #66

As far as I can tell overbooking is an almost exclusively US phenomenon. In Europe I don't know of anyone who has been 'bumped' off a flight because it was overbooked. Low cost airlines like Ryanair manage to fill flights without overbooking. There is a lot to dislike about Mr O'Leary's company but I don't think anyone worries that their ticket is not going to be honoured.

Low cost airlines like Ryanair manage to fill flights without overbooking.

Presumably the reason why US airlines overbook is to maximize yield since almost always some passengers don't show up. Any reason why non-US airlines don't do the same? I suspect it has to do with ticket regulations but would like to learn more.

Re: Airlines Are Backing Volantio (YC W09), a Startup That Could Fix Overbooking

#68

Post by bogomipz »

hueving wrote: post #51
bogomipz wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Airlines are very much currently burdened with a legacy that was cemented in sometime in the 50's." Which legacy exactly are they "burdened" with? The airlines in US were deregulated in 1980s. The airlines look nothing like they did in the 1950s. The regulatory regime is gone, there's "power by the hour", fuel futures etc. >"Ultimately, they're given a large multi-dimensional optimisation problem ..." Yes and the a…

>You are simply enabling airlines to continue this unethical practice Don't project your morals onto the rest of us. As a frequent flyer who likes to travel I love this practice. It means lower prices overall and it gives me the opportunity to fly for free somewhere else later if I volunteer out. With the switch to real cash compensation on some airlines, I can even make money if I don't feel like using it to fly. I…

>"Don't project your morals onto the rest of us"

I'm not projecting "my" morals onto anybody. Intentionally overbooking and knowing full well that you are going to bring inconvenience and stress to people is just plain fucked up. That's not really a grey area. If you bought a ticket to a movie and then were asked to leave the theater before the movie started in order to make room for someone else who bought a ticket you would be livid. The same is true for any other "ticketed" event.

>"I have flown over 2 million miles in my lifetime and I have never seen someone forced to give up their seat."

Here you can read all about it:

https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/10/travel/passenger-removed-unit...

And that is not the first time either. Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Re: Airlines Are Backing Volantio (YC W09), a Startup That Could Fix Overbooking

#69

Post by mseebach »

vannevar wrote: post #49
intopieces wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your solution means higher ticket prices overall, which consumers have repeatedly indicated they do not want. Most people don’t get bumped from flights. Most people don’t want to pay x% more to see their family once a year.

The percentage increase in price shouldn't be any greater than the percentage probability of getting bumped from a flight, which as you point out, is relatively low. If every hundredth seat is overbooked on average, then you've got 101 passengers for 100 seats. If they all paid $100, then you could offset the lost revenue from the 101st passenger by charging the remaining passengers $101 each. Not exactly a game chan…

Overbooking != Bumped passengers

Most of the time, by a large margin, all of the passengers who show up for a flight get on it. That's the premise for overbooking, for any given flight, some number of passengers don't show up (including for reasons like missed connections, which the airline still have to fix).

Sometimes, though rarely in the grand scheme of things, too many passengers do show up, and bumping is necessary. In the vast majority of those cases, someone volunteers for compensation.

It's also important to keep in mind that the Dr Dao incident wasn't caused by overbooking, at least not as commonly understood. The airline urgently needed to reposition a crew to allow another flight to operate, and decided that this need trumped the passengers.

Re: Airlines Are Backing Volantio (YC W09), a Startup That Could Fix Overbooking

#70

Post by bogomipz »

nanis wrote: post #55
bogomipz wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"These days, it's not the legacy. It is mostly regulation pushed by Chuck Schume" The OPs comment was that the airlines were burdened by legacy from the 1950s. Mr Schumer's legislation is quite recent. Additionally the legislation "Passenger Bill of Rights" is quite reasonable - let your customers off the plane after 3 hours of delay. It's pretty easy to avoid that penalty. It's also worth pointing out that legislat…

So-called "Passenger Bill of Rights" takes away options from passengers[1]. "We found that for every minute of tarmac time being saved there is, on average, a three-minute increase in the total passenger delay," said Vikrant Vaze, an assistant professor at Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering who co-authored the study. Adopted in 2010, the Transportation Department rule requires that passengers be allowed to depl…

Again there is no reason the airlines can't let people off the plane after a couple of hours in order to avoid penalties. And it's unclear why you are holding this up as "burdensome" legislation.
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