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[Varche]

About time this practice was stopped. It is just greed or poor admin on behalf of the airlines.

Last week we had the farcical United airlines situation. The guy has filed a lawsuit understandably.

Now Easyjet have done the same thing and cocked up telling the "victims" their rights

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39620088

Has anyone on the forum been an overbooked passenger and had to leave a flight?

I haven't over the years thankfully but a few years back was sat right behind a family flying to Minorca. One of them had to leave the plane because of "overbooking". The dad chose to go and fly via Madrid to Minorca on a later flight(s). I can still remember the two young daughters screaming as their Dad voluntarily left to help sort the problem.

[LC0112G]

Yes, I've been denied boarding twice, but you can't ban the practice of overbooking without putting prices up a lot.

If you buy a full price ticket (which often costs 10 times what most of us pay), then you can make as many reservations on as many flights as you want. Obviously you can only actually travel once, but it's not uncommon for a business man to not know what time (or even day) his meeting is going to be, so they buy one flexible ticket and make multiple reservations. The airlines know this, and they have sophisticated software models that try to predict who is actually going to turn up. If they've sold (say) 10 fully flexible tickets for a 200 seater flight then they'll gamble that perhaps 6 or 7 of these people won't turn up, and sell 196 lower fare restricted tickets. They know the people with 'cheap' tickets are very likely to turn up, so they are gambling on the full fare payers not turning up. It works 99% of the time, but the other 1% of the time the cheap ticket person is going to get bumped off - The airline won't want to upset a full price ticket payer. 

If you stop the airlines overselling, then they are going to end up flying with empty seats when full price payers don't turn up, which will increase the price of cheap tickets. Years ago I was travelling standby, and checked in or a flight from Las Vegas to Pheonix. I asked how full the plane was, and they said it was 180+ overbooked - but I should be fine (was a Delta Airlines 727 IIRC). Sure enough, I got on the flight and it was half empty.

What is unusual is for 201 people to actually manage to get on-board a 200 seat plane. I've seen it happen once (a Ryanair from Bristol to Dublin) and thankfully we had an off duty Ryanair pilot on board who offered to go sit in the cockpit jump seat. If that hadn't happened then they would have had to throw someone off the plane.

The last time I got bumped was last year on a BA 6am flight from Heathrow to Munich. Went to check in at about 04:30 and got denied. Turned out the previous evenings flight had been cancelled, and they'd re-booked everyone onto other flights including mine. I was offered 400Euros compo, and rebooked on the 9am flight. I was pretty pissed off and still won't travel BA unless I have to, but at least the airline followed the rules.

But - dragging a paying customer off the plane to allow (off duty?) crew to travel (presumably space-A)? Now that is unacceptable in my book.

[Sir Tigger KC]

The fella that was dragged off the United Airlines flight suffered a broken nose and lost teeth! 

Maybe there's more to this story than we're being told by the media, but I hope he gets a handsome reward from his lawsuit! 

[Varche]

If you stop the airlines overselling, then they are going to end up flying with empty seats when full price payers don't turn up, which will increase the price of cheap tickets.

That initially was my take on the situation however
- they have had the money for all the seats
- they save money by not having to use so much fuel as less actual passengers.

So you could argue that cheap tickets would stay cheap and the airlines are not managing the situation properly.

[Mister Rog]

I just hate flying anyway. Years ago I use to fly a lot on business, mostly Europe and USA. Now I avoid flying whenever possible, it's not exciting or jetsetting or adventurous, its a pain in the ass.

Takes ages to get to the airport
The destination airport is probably nowhere near where you actually want to get to.
Airports are designed to part you from your money rather than for speed and efficiency
Overbooking, cancellations, lateness all result in an unreliable service
Assholes who refuse to check bags in and insist on loading up the overhead lockers have now made flying even more unpleaseant

Plus how is it that as I've got older (and bigger) the seats have got smaller ? 

I was leaving Heathrow on the opening day of T5. It took 2 days for me to get to Milan, with no baggage. The BA staff told so many outright lies they were tripping over their noses. Absolute disaster.

Part of the problem is that flying is actually too cheap. We just seem to expect to be able to fly across the World for a tenner. And then complain about the food !

Although I understand that the fuel efficiency of aircraft has improved, I can not accept that an aluminium tube burning tons of fuel at 35,000 ft is good for the environment (i'm sure that someone will be along to contradict this soon!). Also, why fly across the Atlantic or to Asia just to lie on a beach ?

I have a rough rule, if my destination is within about 1,000 km of Calais, I make extra time and drive over a day or so. I get to actually see things, meet people, and I can buy stuff and load up the car. 


AND . . . . . . . actually no, I'd better stop     

[Sir Tigger KC]

Assholes who refuse to check bags in and insist on loading up the overhead lockers have now made flying even more unpleaseant

This always gets my goat as well!    There's always heaps of people with oversized bags in the cabin, which has meant that I've had to put my small daysack under the seat in front, because there's no room in the overhead lockers! 

[LC0112G]

If you stop the airlines overselling, then they are going to end up flying with empty seats when full price payers don't turn up, which will increase the price of cheap tickets.

That initially was my take on the situation however
- they have had the money for all the seats
- they save money by not having to use so much fuel as less actual passengers.

So you could argue that cheap tickets would stay cheap and the airlines are not managing the situation properly.

No - they haven't. The person paying full price hasn't travelled on that flight, but are still able to travel on the next flight, or the next flight or the next filght.

In the extreme, if they sold 200 fully flexible seats for a 200 seater plane and they can't overbook, then they can't take any more bookings on any flight until at least one of those people actually fly. The plane would stil have to go to pick up people coming the other way, but outbound it could be empty.

[LC0112G]

Assholes who refuse to check bags in and insist on loading up the overhead lockers have now made flying even more unpleaseant

This always gets my goat as well!    There's always heaps of people with oversized bags in the cabin, which has meant that I've had to put my small daysack under the seat in front, because there's no room in the overhead lockers! 

This is the airlines and the big airports fault. If you charge for hold baggage then people minimise the amount of hold baggage and just take more hand baggage. And if it takes ages to get your bags back at the other end (hello Gatwick!) then you do what you can to avoid checking it in. I regularly take camera equipment as hand baggage - no way am I checking in £5K+ of gear.

The solution would be to allow you to load/drop your own bags at the hold - It's what happens in the US on smaller regional flights.

[Mister Rog]

Assholes who refuse to check bags in and insist on loading up the overhead lockers have now made flying even more unpleaseant

This always gets my goat as well!    There's always heaps of people with oversized bags in the cabin, which has meant that I've had to put my small daysack under the seat in front, because there's no room in the overhead lockers! 

This is the airlines and the big airports fault. If you charge for hold baggage then people minimise the amount of hold baggage and just take more hand baggage. And if it takes ages to get your bags back at the other end (hello Gatwick!) then you do what you can to avoid checking it in. I regularly take camera equipment as hand baggage - no way am I checking in £5K+ of gear.

The solution would be to allow you to load/drop your own bags at the hold - It's what happens in the US on smaller regional flights.

Nope. I recently took a BA flight not budget airline, no extra charge for generous hold luggage, very little delay waiting for bags at either end (Vienna & Gatwick), certainly not as much as if a flight was delayed. The people who do this just want to be seen as "regular flyers" and are too impatient/self important for a short wait. On this trip, both ways there were assholes spending huge a amount of time cramming big bags into lockers and even complaining that there was no space for them. I'm surprised that planes don't get top heavy due to full cabins and empty holds  In the past the overhead lockers were for coats, small bags, bits and pieces and that's how it should be.

Expensive or fragile kit ? Yes I agree, keep it with you if possible, but I've checked an expensive guitar as hold luggage with no problems, admitedly in a sturdy flight case.

[LC0112G]

Nope. I recently took a BA flight not budget airline, no extra charge for generous hold luggage, very little delay waiting for bags at either end (Vienna & Gatwick), certainly not as much as if a flight was delayed. The people who do this just want to be seen as "regular flyers" and are too impatient/self important for a short wait. On this trip, both ways there were assholes spending huge a amount of time cramming big bags into lockers and even complaining that there was no space for them. I'm surprised that planes don't get top heavy due to full cabins and empty holds  In the past the overhead lockers were for coats, small bags, bits and pieces and that's how it should be.

Expensive or fragile kit ? Yes I agree, keep it with you if possible, but I've checked an expensive guitar as hold luggage with no problems, admitedly in a sturdy flight case.

BA do charge extra for hold luggage - short haul at least. I've just looked at LGW-VIE and cheapest is £77 each way hand-baggage only, and £93 with one piece 23Kg hold baggage. So £30 extra return. And now no food either, so there is basically no difference between BA and Easyjet for short haul. Except you can get a Bacon butty on Easyjet and can't on BA.

Gatwick - gah. If I'm going on holiday and know I'm going to be checking luggage in I'll go virtually anywhere except Gatwick.

[Kevin Wood]

You also have to bear in mind that hold baggage is weighed and counts towards the maximum take-off weight of the aircraft whereas cabin baggage is not, and there is a standard allowance per passenger used to calculate cabin loading. So, the less hold baggage an airline loads, the more "paying" baggage in the shape of mail, freight, "tankered" fuel, where that's an advantage, etc. they can load.

It's not surprising they make it as tedious and expensive as possible to put baggage in the hold.

[LC0112G]

You also have to bear in mind that hold baggage is weighed and counts towards the maximum take-off weight of the aircraft whereas cabin baggage is not, and there is a standard allowance per passenger used to calculate cabin loading. So, the less hold baggage an airline loads, the more "paying" baggage in the shape of mail, freight, "tankered" fuel, where that's an advantage, etc. they can load.

It's not surprising they make it as tedious and expensive as possible to put baggage in the hold.

And since landing fees are often charged based on aircraft weight, it makes sense for people like Ryanair to minimise their declared hold baggage weight. Not that they would ever fib 

[tunnie]

I've always wondered as weight = more fuel, thus the charge. Why is my ticket not cheaper than the fat git next to me?

I should get a 10 stone baggage allowance 

[Kevin Wood]

I've always wondered as weight = more fuel, thus the charge. Why is my ticket not cheaper than the fat git next to me?

I should get a 10 stone baggage allowance 

Well, a component of the fuel burn is weight related, of course, as heavily loaded wings create more drag, but, once you've subtracted the empty weight of the airframe itself, plus the fuel you need to take with you, and the fuel burn that's used overcoming parasitic drag of the airframe which is there regardless of weight, reserves and taxiing requirements, etc. I'd wager that your ticket wouldn't get much cheaper.

[Doctor Gollum]

I won't fly on Ryanair.

Ever.

Even if it were the only airline left and the alternative was swimming to somewhere else in order to crawl to my destination using my plums to drag my luggage.