Posted on Apr 12, 2017
Do you feel it's fair for an airline to deplane (in any way) a paying passenger when they are oversold?
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Posted 8 y ago
Responses: 24
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Absolutely! They have policies in place which we all agree to abide by every time we buy a ticket. But they also need to realize there is a right way and a wrong way to accomplish this. BTW, I hold United much less at fault than I do the police officer involved for turning this into a spectacle. But what was he to do after being told there was a trespasser on the airplane? Best course of action would have been to continue raising the bribe to find a volunteer. I'm sure all of United would agree paying me $10000 or even $100000 to give up my seat would be a better solution than the black eye they received.
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LTC Joseph Gross
PO3 Donald Murphy - You're missing the point. YOU benefit by over booking when you are that 101st guy with a ticket for a plane that holds 100. The airline never loses money because they so rarely have to pay out more than another flight and $400. Those stand by fliers you are talking about would not be there if not for the over booking policy...
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PO3 Donald Murphy
You can still glean that extra money from standby fliers without overbooking. Face it, if I need to get from A to B, I'm standby for EVERYTHING. Not just United. I'll fly anyone, right? So the airline has no way of knowing how many stand by flyers are there "just for them" or for anything else. I myself have asked Delta if they have a flight, gotten a "no" answer and then walked over to American, etc. If United doesn't have a standby seat I'm not going to continue waiting for them. I'll go somewhere else. And have. I've gone to four or five airlines at times.
Remember, before the gate opens, the flight is fully paid for. 100 seats. As you don't care if someone misses their flight as you don't refund their money, you have no reason to overbook. The booking should stop at 100 tickets. If ten people fail to show up, you announce that ten standby seats are available. If no one is there, you haven't lost. If only three people are there, you win.
People don't just randomly show up to the airport expecting standby tickets, so the overbooking culture is done out of stupidity, not greed. I'm standby because my already paid for flight got cancelled. I didn't just wake up and decide to go to the airport on the off-chance of scoring a cheap ticket. See what I mean?
Remember, before the gate opens, the flight is fully paid for. 100 seats. As you don't care if someone misses their flight as you don't refund their money, you have no reason to overbook. The booking should stop at 100 tickets. If ten people fail to show up, you announce that ten standby seats are available. If no one is there, you haven't lost. If only three people are there, you win.
People don't just randomly show up to the airport expecting standby tickets, so the overbooking culture is done out of stupidity, not greed. I'm standby because my already paid for flight got cancelled. I didn't just wake up and decide to go to the airport on the off-chance of scoring a cheap ticket. See what I mean?
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No it's not fair and in this specific example, the plane wasn't overbooked. The company just felt it was more important to put their aircrew in seats after the paying customers were already seated.
If the company needed seats open to get a crew into another city, they should have literally been the first people on the plane before anyone started boarding.
It's one thing if the person was being a disruption, threatening, etc. Then fine, remove them from the plane. But asking someone to leave and then ejecting them because they refused crosses the line.
If the company needed seats open to get a crew into another city, they should have literally been the first people on the plane before anyone started boarding.
It's one thing if the person was being a disruption, threatening, etc. Then fine, remove them from the plane. But asking someone to leave and then ejecting them because they refused crosses the line.
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In my experience, the airline offered cash incentives to passengers who voluntarily deplaned an overbooked flight. I took advantage of one on an occasion when my schedule allowed it. Obviously, in the case, United would have saved themselves a lot of trouble and money had they simply chartered a plane to take their crew where needed.
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