Will Overbooking Ever Be Abolished?

At the check-in kiosk, flyers are now often asked if they would be willing to consider a later flight in exchange for compensation. The practice of overbooking – or selling more seats than are available on an aircraft – helps airlines ensure they fly full. Even with technology and a promise to customer service, will the madness of overbooking ever come to an end?

Checking in at the kiosk, there may only be one thing less dreaded than airlines-mileageplus/1614292-recent-experiences-ssss-ua-traveler-11.html” target=”_blank”>seeing “SSSS” on your boarding pass, but a little more disappointing than not being added to the upgrade list: the screen asking if you would be willing to give up your seat in exchange for a credit towards a future flight. It could mean your regularly scheduled flight may have been oversold.

Overbooking has been used by airlines for decades as a safeguard to flying half-empty aircraft. Gambling on the fact that some flyers may elect to same-day switch to different flights, or miss their flight entirely, carriers will intentionally sell more tickets for a flight than they have available seats. As a result, airlines ensure their numbers stay relatively positive – sometimes at the expense of flyers.

This has created a point of contention between flyers and carriers, to the point where many are demanding action. After the “Draggate” incident, United Airlines promised flyers they would always be asked ahead of time if they would be okay with giving up their seats for a voucher. Across the pond, British Airways is investing in a technology company in the hopes they can reduce their reliance on selling too many seats. While these are all nice ideas, will overbooking ever truly come to an end?

It’s possible that overbooking isn’t as big of a problem as we think it is. Looking at domestic data from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) monthly Air Travel Consumer Report, FlyerTalk found that among the 12 biggest airlines in America (including regional carriers SkyWest Airlines and ExpressJet Airlines), only 470,945 passengers were reported to be denied boarding, voluntarily or otherwise. Compared to over 660 million flyers who successfully arrived at their final destination, that’s less than .08 percent of flyers who were inconvenienced.

In 2017 – the year of “Draggate” – that number dropped even further. Only 364,926 flyers were not able to board their regularly booked flight, compared to over 680 million who flew with an American carrier. This breaks down to less than .06 percent of all flyers on reporting American carriers.

Of course, these numbers are not perfect. They do not take into account what happens when flights are canceled during irregular operations, such as adverse weather conditions or ground stops at other airports. They also don’t take into consideration how many flyers are inconvenienced in other ways – including lost luggage – when things go awry.

Overall, airline oversales are one of the least complained about concerns for flyers, as reflected by the available statistics. Even flyers aren’t as concerned about overbooking. The DOT data shows that only 2.9 percent of formal complaints received by the DOT were about the practice. Much more relevant were flight problems (29.5 percent), reservations, ticketing and boarding practices (11.8 percent) and fare prices (9.2 percent). In the same month, the DOT only fielded nine complaints about oversales from flyers aboard foreign airlines.

While overbooking is still an inconvenience is a problem, it is getting better. It may not go away soon, but we can all be rest assured that we have some of the best odds – over 99.9995 percent – of getting to our destination without getting stuck at the airport.

 

[Image: Flickr/Steve Mays]