A&e's New Series Airline

[Busdrvr]

I wouldn't think you guys would be talking up last nights show... 53 over sold on a jet with 137 seats? WOW. Even the bug ugly evil hub and spoke guys don't do that (or they at least use interline agreements to accomindate it's pax) I think I'd be downright giddy if SWA made me miss a cruise... I guess status and a booked seat on a major isn't always a bad thing. The the two "people of size... Didn't you guys say you don't charge them unless the jet is full? They said the flight was booked to 60, yet the bothe guys were embarressed with the "walk of shame", and one had to actually buy a ticket (or his woman did...)

 

[phllax]

I too am surprised that nobody commented on that FLL flight. If that was me, I would have been annoyed to say the least that they didn't do more to attract volunteers, especially since all of those who did not make it were going on cruises that left that afternoon around 5pm. Shame on the agent for sending them to IND without even confirming seats! I wonder if anybody got booted off in Jacksonville too? Didn't they have any spare aircraft sitting around they could have used for these folks, after all, with 53 they could fill half of a 500!

 

[KCFlyer]

I wouldn't think you guys would be talking up last nights show... 53 over sold on a jet with 137 seats? WOW. Even the bug ugly evil hub and spoke guys don't do that (or they at least use interline agreements to accomindate it's pax) I think I'd be downright giddy if SWA made me miss a cruise... I guess status and a booked seat on a major isn't always a bad thing. The the two "people of size... Didn't you guys say you don't charge them unless the jet is full? They said the flight was booked to 60, yet the bothe guys were embarressed with the "walk of shame", and one had to actually buy a ticket (or his woman did...)

You know...some people are just cheap. I'm taking a cruise next month, out of Fort Lauderdale. It leaves on Saturday afternoon. I am flying out Friday morning and popping for a hotel. It really helps with things like, oh, oversold flights or lost luggage. Judging from the comments from the gate agent, it wasn't a particularly common thing to have 53 seats oversold. But bussie....I flew on a "major" to Dallas Friday - it was oversold. And the funny part was...everybody who was bumped was sitting there, holding a boarding card with an assigned seat on it.

Bus...allow me to explain the theory of the "walk of shame" - people who need two seats pretty much know it. Let one of your platinum elites complain about their seatmate sitting on them from Denver to LA and I'll betcha that corporate will send them a voucher along with the apology letter. When you can steer people who might need two seats to buy them in advance, then there won't be any "walk of shame" and they will get a refund if the flight is full. Of course, the policy of the other carriers is to depend on the OTHER person...the customer...to complain to the FA about the passenger of size. Then, the "walk of shame" becomes a situation where an overweight person is escorted off the plane in front of 150 other folks. I'll bet you that any passenger who experiences THAT night have wished that someone at the counter would have "shamed" him instead of leaving that up to his fellow customer.

 

[Busdrvr]

"....I flew on a "major" to Dallas Friday - it was oversold. And the funny part was...everybody who was bumped was sitting there, holding a boarding card with an assigned seat on it."

You shouldn't fly those guys either... I can understand oversales based on traditional levels of no-shows, everybody does it, but 53?!!! This had to be a case of the airline trying to score a few more full fare ticket sales at the expense of the internet fare junkies. In any case, become a premier exec and you can leave Sat morning... Or in other words, there IS an additional cost to cheap tickets...

"Of course, the policy of the other carriers is to depend on the OTHER person...the customer...to complain to the FA about the passenger of size."

I guess "people of size" need to be reminded that the A320 seats are 1/2 inch wider.

"Then, the "walk of shame" becomes a situation where an overweight person is escorted off the plane in front of 150 other folks. I'll bet you that any passenger who experiences THAT night have wished that someone at the counter would have "shamed" him instead of leaving that up to his fellow customer."

15o other pax? you must have been running ticket sales for that 53 oversold flight... FWIW, the arbitrary way that the policy is enforced showed it's head. One guy ( a frequent flyer...) contended that he'd NEVER been asked to buy two seats, guess he needed to "realize he's fat anyway" and bought extra tickets anyway... Yup, walk of shame in front of millions instead of a taking your chances of one with "150" ( who undoubtedly got to watch the "walk" from the boarding area.. "hey Liz, will you take the fat guy with the football jersey on and see if he can stuff his arse between the armrests..."

 

[mga707]

I wouldn't think you guys would be talking up last nights show... 53 over sold on a jet with 137 seats? WOW.

Why not? "Us guys" (whatever THAT means) are merely viewers discussing it as the entertainment it is. Besides, my comment was on the second episode, where everything went right (except for yet another obnoxious, abusive drunk), rather than the lead episode which truly showed a day from hell at MDW. I'm pretty sure the massive oversale was a screwed-up anomaly. I sure hope so. It's never happened to me, although I only fly 4-5 times per year.

 

[KCFlyer]

You shouldn't fly those guys either... I can understand oversales based on traditional levels of no-shows, everybody does it, but 53?!!! This had to be a case of the airline trying to score a few more full fare ticket sales at the expense of the internet fare junkies. In any case, become a premier exec and you can leave Sat morning... Or in other words, there IS an additional cost to cheap tickets...

I still kind of think it was a anomaly - you know, computers DO make mistakes. Why I recall a couple of years ago that UAL was "selling" some transcons for $20...stuff does happen. As far as flying out the day of a cruise...sorry, I won't do that, even if I'm the CEO of the airline. There are a lot more "plusses" that you get for the cost of a hotel room...a leisurly breakfast, getting to sleep in, and no rush to get from the airport to the cruise ship. Nope...the day before is the ONLY way to cruise. Besides...beng a premier exec won't help at all if a spring snow wreaks havoc on ORD when I really NEED to be in Florida that day - unless those premiers have the power to say "bussie...taki this plane out in zero/zero vis and screw the deicing... my ship leaves in 4 hours and I have to be on it."...

I guess "people of size" need to be reminded that the A320 seats are 1/2 inch wider.

You know, if the seat is 17.5 inches wide and the butt is 18.5 inches wide, it's still not going to be much more comfortable of a ride.

15o other pax? you must have been running ticket sales for that 53 oversold flight... FWIW, the arbitrary way that the policy is enforced showed it's head. One guy ( a frequent flyer...) contended that he'd NEVER been asked to buy two seats, guess he needed to "realize he's fat anyway" and bought extra tickets anyway... Yup, walk of shame in front of millions instead of a taking your chances of one with "150" ( who undoubtedly got to watch the "walk" from the boarding area.. "hey Liz, will you take the fat guy with the football jersey on and see if he can stuff his arse between the armrests

No buss...I am talking about Uniteds policy, which happens to say the VERY SAME THING that Southwest does in their policy. Except....instead of a gate agent being the "bad guy", y'all leave it up to the customer whose seat is being shared. That may be just a little TOO customer focused. and...if it's a full flight and a customer complains, then what will the UAL FA do... get on the PA and ask if there are any volunteers to share their seat with the fat guy, or do they walk him off the plane in front of the 150 folks that can be seated on a UNITED jet?

 

[skycruiser]

I still kind of think it was a anomaly - you know, computers DO make mistakes.

Wrong.. PEOPLE make mistakes. Computers are machines that are no smarter than the person that programs it (garbage in-garbage out). If the authorization level for an oversell was set that high and/or those seats were forced in on an oversold slight somebody had to give authorization to do so.

 

[KCFlyer]

Wrong.. PEOPLE make mistakes. Computers are machines that are no smarter than the person that programs it (garbage in-garbage out). If the authorization level for an oversell was set that high and/or those seats were forced in on an oversold slight somebody had to give authorization to do so.

skycruiser....you're sort of right....computers only do what people program them to do. But having worked with those beloved computers for a bit over 20 years, I can tell you that a lot of times, a programmer will make a small change, and maybe not quite give it as thorough of testing as he or she should. And it gets put into production, only to discover that that little change did something somewhere else that it wasn't supposed to do. I can't say what happened to oversell 53 seats, but some ideas are that a change may have zeroed out the seat count on the flight...or that it had an unititizlized field for oversells, meaning that it thought it could oversell 4,000 seats on a 135 seat airplane. Or that maybe a mistake was found and the "fix" implemented, but human error overlooked them checking the oversale numbers for that flight.


Trust me....I've seen my share of "bugs" make it out into the world of computers. And nobody "authorized" anything more than making a change. Here's an example - minor security update to a sales force automation software package. It gets loaded and presto...other computers can no longer communicate with the main computer. Seems that fix didn't "play well with others". Yep...somebody "authorized" a change, but they certainly didn't "authorize" the system downtime caused by the change.

 

[W:EXCH:INVOL]

But bussie....I flew on a "major" to Dallas Friday - it was oversold. And the funny part was...everybody who was bumped was sitting there, holding a boarding card with an assigned seat on it.

I can't speak for the "major" spoke of, but surely these folks must have been ones bumped voluntarily. I can see how a "comfirmed" customer could have been bumped involuntarily, but not one with a seat assignment. But other factors could have come into play. Was the equipment downsized?

Trying to legitimize this by saying cruise pax should have travelled the day before doesn't wash. In this day and age, most customers look for the absolute cheapest way from A to B, and will not splurge for a night in a hotel if they don't have to. I agree, they should have, but that fact does not make this situation correct. btw-let's say they did go the day before, with the computer error or whatever reason was in place to oversell by 53, wouldn't it still have been way oversold?

 

[KCFlyer]

But bussie....I flew on a "major" to Dallas Friday - it was oversold. And the funny part was...everybody who was bumped was sitting there, holding a boarding card with an assigned seat on it.

I can't speak for the "major" spoke of, but surely these folks must have been ones bumped voluntarily. I can see how a "comfirmed" customer could have been bumped involuntarily, but not one with a seat assignment. But other factors could have come into play. Was the equipment downsized?

Trying to legitimize this by saying cruise pax should have travelled the day before doesn't wash. In this day and age, most customers look for the absolute cheapest way from A to B, and will not splurge for a night in a hotel if they don't have to. I agree, they should have, but that fact does not make this situation correct. btw-let's say they did go the day before, with the computer error or whatever reason was in place to oversell by 53, wouldn't it still have been way oversold?

W...hmmm...if the flight was "oversold", then if they weren't bumped "voluntarily", does that mean they all got on the plane? It's pretty easy to be sitting there with a boarding card....Delta, Northwest and others allow you to print your "boarding card" from home - off the internet. So if they show up for a flight that has been "oversold"...holding their boarding card...after most everybody else has boarded, are they not "involuntarily" bumped? It wasn't an equipment change...it was a CRJ - just as it was advertised. As a matter of fact, I "bought" the last two seats that were available from the airline web site. In fact, I just put my mother in law on a Northwest flight....one leg of those flights didn't have a seat assignment, just a "gate check in" notation. What happens if she checks in before a person with an assigned seat shows up closer to flight time?

Regarding the cruise passengers - Yes...if a flight the previous day was oversold, they may have been bumped. But they would have had 24 additional hours to get to their departure port. Call me overly cautious, but anyone leaving from any time zone other than the Eastern time zone and trying to fly to a Florida port is cutting it very close, since they are already an hour "behind" the east coast. Last year, we were on a cruise out of Tampa. Had I caught a 6:00 a.m. flight out of KC, I wouldn't have arrived in Tampa until 1:00. That's a 3 hour window to make the ship. That's not enough time...what if my bags are misrouted? Can the airline get them to the ship in less than 3 hours? Weather delays....MX delays....or ATC delays cut into that already short window. Cruise passengers who buy travel insurance might be led to believe that they're covered if they miss the ship because the plane was late...not so if it was a MX delay...they'll only cover "acts of nature" - weather delays. Yet another reason to pop for a hotel the night before.

Heck...I'm flying Southwest into FLL next month for another cruise...the day before. I booked on the first flight of the day that day. That way, if for any reason I am "bumped" from that flight, I have an entire days options available to me. You're right about people looking for the cheapest way to get from A to B. Folks on a cruise can be paying a phenomenally low fare for really first class service...food...entertainment...yet they will avoid Friday travel and a hotel because it "costs too much".

 

[phllax]

Did anybody see last night, how do they not preboard a UM? I know they finally found a set for the kid, but how do they not make sure he gets a seat?

 

[KCFlyer]

Did anybody see last night, how do they not preboard a UM? I know they finally found a set for the kid, but how do they not make sure he gets a seat?

If I recall correctly, they didn't show what time the mother and the child got to the gate.

 

[W:EXCH:INVOL]

W...hmmm...if the flight was "oversold", then if they weren't bumped "voluntarily", does that mean they all got on the plane? It's pretty easy to be sitting there with a boarding card....Delta, Northwest and others allow you to print your "boarding card" from home - off the internet. So if they show up for a flight that has been "oversold"...holding their boarding card...after most everybody else has boarded, are they not "involuntarily" bumped? It wasn't an equipment change...it was a CRJ - just as it was advertised. As a matter of fact, I "bought" the last two seats that were available from the airline web site.

I'm just trying to figure out that if someone has a boarding card with a seat number on it (and they did show up at the gate on time), then who is sitting in their seat on the plane and why were they involuntarily bumped?

 

[mga707]

If I recall correctly, they didn't show what time the mother and the child got to the gate.

The inference was definitely that they showed up way too late for preboarding. It looked like general boarding was well in progress, if not nearly completed, by the time they sauntered up.

Last night's new episode was chock-full of people not taking any responsibility for their own rather questionable actions, from "I can't find my obsolete-in-2004 paper ticket, how dare you tell me I've got to buy another one!" to "Grandma's got one foot in the grave, let's get her out of assisted care against medical advice and get her on a plane to Vegas!" to "Hey, let's put all of (Iranian) Grandma's necessary drugs and medications in our CHECKED baggage--nothing could possibly happen to it!"
I just shake my head in wonderment...

 

[KCFlyer]

W...hmmm...if the flight was "oversold", then if they weren't bumped "voluntarily", does that mean they all got on the plane? It's pretty easy to be sitting there with a boarding card....Delta, Northwest and others allow you to print your "boarding card" from home - off the internet.  So if they show up for a flight that has been "oversold"...holding their boarding card...after most everybody else has boarded, are they not "involuntarily" bumped?  It wasn't an equipment change...it was a CRJ - just as it was advertised. As a matter of fact, I "bought" the last two seats that were available from the airline web site.

I'm just trying to figure out that if someone has a boarding card with a seat number on it (and they did show up at the gate on time), then who is sitting in their seat on the plane and why were they involuntarily bumped?

They simply oversold the flight and gave someone a ticket that said "gate checkin required" on it. But what is the difference between an airline overselling a seat like that and Southwest overselling a seat? Somebody is going to get bumped...whether they volunteer or not.