Should aviation companies be allowed to overbook airplanes?

Do you think that aviation companies should be allowed to overbook airplanes?

  • Yes

    Votes: 9 52.9%

  • No

    Votes: 7 41.2%

  • Other

    Votes: 1 5.9%
  • Total voters
    17
Ryan Miller

Ryan Miller

Active member
As many of you may know, the recent video about United Airlines violently dragging a paying consumer out of an airplane created a lot of anger. This man was dragged out of the airplane because the plane was overbooked. Overbooked is when there are more people going into the plane than the maximum amount of people allowed (basically, more people than there are seats in the plane).

Why do aviation companies overbook airplanes? This is because they know that some people aren't going to make it to their flight. If this is the case, then there are going to be extra seats in the airplane and that would be a lost revenue for the aviation company. So, what they do to fix this problem is by overbooking the flight. They have more people purchase a seat in the airplane than there are actual seats in the airplane (wtf Ryan, your grammar). So, what do you think, do you think that this practice should be abolished or allowed?

 
I am not sure what to say about this, I see the point that Airlines knows not all of the people will get on the plane, but when I saw the video I really thought it was crazy how they did that to a customer. HOWEVER, I will play the devils advocate and say "yes" and wait for @Sargun to qoute me and say something about my opinon.

 
Its a great ethics question straight out of my MBA ethics course.

Companies should be allowed to overbook (their are statistical formulas to determine how much to overbook by actually - I'm not joking).  However, companies who do this need to handle situations like this far better.  They apparently offered a $400 voucher, nothing more and that was it, and immediately went in to "lets pull people off mode" (probably has to do with the pure stress level during that time due to the huge backlog of flights around the country in the preceding days - nicely done ATL!!).  However, Every airline policy states they are suppose to continue to increase the voucher claim by $100 UNTIL someone accepts it or they reach $1200 (this number may be different now).  If no one is willing to take the max voucher they offer, the airline is allowed to force people off and give each person they force off who they are not able to provide an alternative way to their destination within 3 hours a $1200 voucher. I am not sure what happened here after they finally drug the poor doctor off... but I assure you there will be legal repercussions for the officers involved in the "dragging incident" and from a moral and ethical standpoint for United as airline customers choose other airlines before United (as well as possible legal repercussions for United too - well handled Mr CEO guy!).  Not to mention the amazing trolling we are witnessing via twitter, insta, facebook, the United webpage, your significant other's backpage ad, in P&W forums, etc.

Happy flying.

Red

 
I agree with RedFive. Getting overbooked is like a flight getting cancelled due to weather, it's just a risk and expense of travel. The problem is that the airline apparently set $800 in shitty hard to use vouchers as the limit for the auction before they started forcibly ejecting people. That's a pretty shit deal, no wonder they couldn't find volunteers.

But apparently there's a federal rule that they owe you 4x the cost of the ticket, up to $1400, if you're forcibly ejected. They must not be paying that money out unless customers press for it? It sounds like it would solve the whole problem if it was actively enforced.

 
Honestly, if I got paid a reasonable amount for giving up my seat, I would be okay with it. The issue is that when you get forcibly removed, they barely give you anything useful.

 
Yeah it should be allowed. It's balanced by market economics. If you remove people but don't compensate them well enough, your reputation burns.

If they don't overbook, they'll likely waste like 7 seats. So they should be fine offering a full 200% cash refund for people who volunteer to get off the flight. And people would be fine accepting that. If they offer shitty, hard to use vouchers, they'll get a backlash from the market, and they did.

 
This particular flight was not overbooked - it was exactly correct.  4 airline employees got the seats in a last minute customer bump.  they needed to get to another city (5 hour driving time) for a morning flight.

 
Pope John Paul II said:
I am not sure what to say about this, I see the point that Airlines knows not all of the people will get on the plane, but when I saw the video I really thought it was crazy how they did that to a customer. HOWEVER, I will play the devils advocate and say "yes" and wait for @Sargun to qoute me and say something about my opinon.
Click to expand...


:(

 
it makes sense to overbook them in terms of efficiency, usually i don't give a fuck about capitalist forms of "efficiency" because it tends to mean how to get away with paying labor as little as possible but when it comes to the amount of fuel burnt for air travel, there are environmental considerations to making the flights as efficient as possible.

however, how they deal with overbooking is bad, clearly. there is such a small chance that a reasonably good offer of cash and accommodation will be rejected by every single person on a plane, but United's problem is that they wanted to give you some shit that isn't worth your while and then have you dragged off the plane if you don't like it. it's not a good moral stance and its clearly not a good business one either judging by their stock price

 
Angevin said:
Find an elderly man and get the police to kick his head in.
Click to expand...
"Each carrier makes its own rules regarding who gets boarding priority when a flight is oversold or over capacity because of a change in aircraft. After looking for volunteers to give up their seats, some domestic carriers bump those who checked in last; others start with passengers in the lowest fare class. All of them give priority to people in special circumstances: those whose trips would be severely delayed, travelers with disabilities, unaccompanied minors, and (naturally) people in premier cabins or with elite loyalty-club status."

Found my own answer, which I suppose I could of done previous :P

http://www.travelandleisure.com/blogs/how-do-airlines-decide-who-to-bump

This has good general information:

http://www.independenttraveler.com/travel-tips/air-travel/bumping-and-overbooking

 
Sylvia said:
How do they pick who to kick off?
Click to expand...


You look at the passenger manifest and find the Asian name and select him.  That's what the doctor's lawyer is arguing they did...

I heard on the radio this dude's lawyer is calling him the Asian Rosa Parks because he is saying he didn't want to give up his seat and he was standing up for all of the Asians who have been kicked off of flights before him...

This guys lawyer is a nut.  But, he is getting a lot of attention...  just what United doesn't want to see and I would suspect the lawyer is hoping for a small settlement in the neighborhood of a few mil...

Red

 
Here's my opinion (please do not kill me for it  :P ):

As was mentioned above, overbooking is a way that prevents airlines from losing money because of passengers who don't show up. Every flight has passengers who won't show up, maybe because they missed their connection, for example. Of course, an empty seat is money lost for the airline. Flying is an expensive industry, and companies need to pay pilots, ground staff, cabin crew, fuel, airport landing fees and so on. So, airlines do not make as much money, it means that maybe, the cost of an individual ticket will go up, as airlines have to compensate for revenue lost from overbooking. 

Airlines also use models and algorithims to determine how many seats they can overbook. These models are slowly getting better, but when people do need to be removed because of overbooking, United's way is unnaceptable. You can't drag a paying passenger off a plane. The problem isn't with overbooking, but how airline staff on the ground deal with an overbooking situation. The United Fiasco shows just that. 

 
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