I know this happened last week, but I haven’t had the chance to write about it until now. The DOT announced that it was going to increase the compensation for passengers who are involuntarily denied boarding. Is this a big deal? Well it could be. It certainly won’t make Robert Stack and the other volunteer bumpees happy, because they’ll probably have fewer chances.

First of all, let me explain exactly what’s happening here. In the fourth quarter of last year, out of 138 million passengers, there were about 125,000 that were denied boarding (pdf – page 33). Of those, nearly 114,000 were voluntarily denied boarding. In other words, the flight was oversold, the airline offered compensation in exchange for someone taking a later flight, and it was a done deal. People who take advantage of that won’t see more money in their pocket.

It’s the slightly more than 11,000 people who were involuntarily denied boarding who will get more. Those people wanted to be on that flight, but the airline couldn’t get enough volunteers. So, they had to deny boarding to someone who wanted to be on that flight. In the past, these people received the remaining value of their ticket to their next stopover with a cap of $200 if they arrived at their destination within 2 hours (4 hours internationally) of their original arrival time. If it’s later than that, passengers were entitled to double the value of what remains on their ticket to the next stopover with a cap of $400. Those caps will now become $400 and $800. Also, the number of seats on planes covered by this rule was reduced from 60 to 30. I had no idea it was 60 before. I’ve seen plenty of 50-seaters go out while still paying the usual compensation, so I’m not sure if this will make much of a difference practically.

So will this matter? If you love volunteering, it probably will reduce your chances. Airlines consider the expected cost of a denied boarding in their overbooking decisions. Now that the cost has gone up, the willingness to overbook will go down. So, those who love getting bumped won’t be happy. On the other hand, the .008% of people who have had the terrible frustration of being bumped involuntarily will be happy-ish to receive more money. I say happy-ish because they won’t actually get to their destination any faster.

Ultimately, this is just a way to discourage the airlines from overbooking. It may work, but it will end up reducing revenues for the airlines. You can expect to see more fare increases to help cover the costs.

Edited @ 1149a on Apr 23: Changed compensation to note that the dollar amounts are caps, but the compensation is based on the value of the ticket.

Once again, we’re at the beginning of the busiest travel period of the year. It’s a time for stuffing yourself silly and watching lots of football. It’s also that time to get stuck in long security lines, bad weather, and to celebrate the tradition of being stranded in the airport, as documented by The Onion here:

And from the looks of the weather map, it’s not going to be an easy week for air travelers. But let’s not focus on the negative. Instead, as we do every year, let’s focus on the True Meaning of Thanksgiving as told once again by my friend, Robert Stack.

Dear traveler,

It is time to put aside our worldly trappings of modern air travel–the gold cards, embossed luggage tags, noise reducing headsets, and tiny bottles of hotel shampoo and conditioner–to pay homage to the True Meaning of Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is not a time to give thanks.

Thanksgiving is a time to get bumped.

The holidays are always a challenging time for those who want to be on their way. And in olden days, these times were indeed challenging, but they were short. The Wednesday before, the Sunday after; other days would be easy and mellow. But now, the travel challenge of the holidays persists throughout the year. Blizzards on New Years Day. Ice storms on Valentine’s Day. Nor’easters on President’s Day. Thunderstorms on Memorial Day, Labor Day, and every Day in between.

The best laid plans cloud the future for the bumpee. Some have threatened to overbook less so that stranded people may be on their way within hours instead of days. Some still cling to the quaint idea that there shall be no overbooking; for these errant ways, punishment has been handed down from the skies on Valentine’s Day. The ever meddling government wants to ratchet up the bonus for the unknowingly lucky, the forced bumpee. While this would ease the pain for these cranky people, it can only be bad for the devotee. For while more money always sounds nice, the airlines, smart critters that they are, will learn to overbook less. And less overbooking always means less fun.

But do not lose heart. All misguided plans go awry sometime, and with any luck, sometime may smile upon you. The skies may clear, the planes may zip in and out, and then the smoothness of it all will lure people back to the airports, to squeeze all at once onto too few seats for too many people. As for me, I am ever less worthy to hold the mantle of a Grand Bumpee. This year I sank to a new low: I passed on a Bump. Never mind that I was already forty hours late after three more bumps; never mind that I slept only a tiny fraction of these forty hours. What counts is that I passed, which means that I failed. And that is a source of shame, for which I must be punished. And my punishment has yet to be revealed, but I fear it may involve a connection in New York.

With endless airport wait wishes,

..robert

–
Links to The True Meaning of Thanksgiving, years past:
http://www.rstack.com/thanksgiving/thanksgiving.html

And with that, I’m off to see the family for the weekend. I wasn’t planning on writing again until Monday, but I’ll have plenty of downtime so I may be back online earlier than that. Happy Thanksgiving to all my American readers.

Though I obviously like it better when my fiancée is here in town, it seems to be much better for my blog when she’s traveling. Last time, it was the infamous United dinner roll debacle. This time, there was gum all over the tray table and the seatback pocket. Yep, it was United, and they still haven’t figured out how to clean their planes. But I’m in a good mood, so let’s focus on something positive.

When she went to check-in online last night for her flight today, she was shown this message:


I don’t know how long United has been doing this, but it’s a great idea. Think about it. When you’re already through security, sitting at the gate, you really don’t want to give up your seat. But in the past, that’s the only place they’ve tried to get volunteers when the flight is oversold.

Now think about when you’re sitting at home, the day before your flight. There’s a much better chance you’d be willing to just go on a later flight in exchange for a free ticket if you didn’t have to deal with the airport experience at all until your new flight time. It’s a win-win in most situations, but not all.

I assume United only wants to use this on flights that are significantly oversold. See, if it’s only oversold by a couple of seats, there’s a good chance there will be enough no-shows that they won’t need volunteers at all. So, if they take volunteers that far in advance, it may end up just being an unnecessary cost for the airline. Still, I would think that the customer service benefits and the ability to get more volunteers would make this worthwhile. Nice work, United.

CORRECTION 11/12 @ 920p: Thank you AS and Jonathan Reed (look down in the comments section), for pointing out that I completely misinterpreted this one. This just puts you on the list and you still have to go to your original gate and wait. So, it’s helpful for United, but it does just about nothing for the passengers. Bummer.

When I first heard about Carol Anne Gotbaum’s sad death at the Phoenix airport last month, I didn’t plan on writing about it. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can read about it here.) It’s not that I didn’t find it newsworthy, but it seemed pretty straightforward to me and I didn’t think there was much I could add.

But after reading this opinion piece in the Washington Post yesterday and getting comments about it on another post, I decided to say something.

See, you can blame airlines for a lot of things, but blaming them for this woman’s death is absolutely ridiculous. But let me back up. There are actually two issues here.

First, we have the question about who is responsible for Ms Gotbaum’s death. The author of this article actually has the gall to blame US Airways’ overbooking policies for her death. Now, I can point out all the inaccuracies myself, but instead I’d recommend reading the US Airways response that was published in the Washington Post.

This had nothing to do with overbooking and instead had to do with some strangely erratic actions of a woman clearly in trouble. But let’s move beyond this ridiculousness and get to the meat of the article.

See, I think the author thought that this would be a good incident to help her advance the cause of saying that US Airways is a horrible airline because they bumped her off a flight awhile ago. It’s pretty poor journalism, but we can still try and examine her arguments.

. . . few reports have focused on the fact that the airlines involved, US Airways and its subcontractor, Mesa Airlines, are notorious for overbooked flights.

It’s important to know that almost every airline overbooks (JetBlue not included). The government knows about it and even tracks the number of people who were involuntarily denied boarding. So, let’s look it up. The most recent report shows second quarter 2007 results. Of the 18 airlines reporting, Mesa ranked 9th and US Airways 12th, both actually slightly better than the industry average. In the first quarter, US Airways was still 12th, but Mesa was 14th. This time they were worse than the industry average but hardly the worst offenders. The fourth quarter of last year saw the airlines finish 11th and 12th respectively (out of 19 airlines) and we can go on and on.

Does US Airways overbook? Yes. Do they have denied boardings? Yes. Are they notorious for it? Only if several other airlines are considered notorious for it as well. I don’t see why they should be singled out here. What else you got?

. . . to increase profitability, Mesa understaffs all its sales counters, baggage staff and other personnel and slashed health care and pensions, while US Air overbooks all flights and often issues duplicate seat assignments.

Guilty as charged. But so is every other airline. Why the personal vendetta against US Airways? Oh right, it’s because the author was bumped once.

The pilot told us they were terribly underpaid and overworked and that flying conditions were unsafe.

I have never met a pilot who would willingly fly an unsafe aircraft with passengers on it. This sounds like someone who wanted to get management in trouble because they’re unhappy about their pay. I understand the frustration – regional pilots in general don’t make much money – but if there are truly unsafe conditions, I would assume this pilot would not be flying those planes and would report it.

Other staffers told us that many US Air/Mesa personnel were dispirited and overworked, which often led them to vent their frustration on passengers, in a sort of “kick the dog” syndrome

Again, I don’t see why this is limited to Mesa and US Airways (not US Air). Just about everyone in the industry is overworked and dispirited. Sad but true.

We can go on and on here, but it’s all more of the same. The way I see it, the author has long had a grudge against US Airways and incredibly thought that she could use this woman’s death to nail them. She interviewed a bunch of angry employees to get some more ammo, and there you have it. What I don’t see is any effort to actually check facts and get opposing viewpoints from US Airways’ management.

There have been plenty of intelligent arguments about the bigger question of what is wrong with US Airways, Mesa, and this industry overall (answer: a lot), but this is clearly not one of them. This is just a poor attempt at a smear job.

Ah, Thanksgiving. It’s easily my favorite holiday of the year. I’ve been stuffing myself over the last few days to keep myself in top shape for the big meal today.

But for the traveler, there is another reason to love Thanksgiving. Since 1998, my friend Robert Stack has issued his annual letter of joy for all to read. Now, in all its unedited glory, I offer you the true meaning of Thanksgiving for 2006.

Dear traveler,

The windows are opening and the air-con has finally earned a good long rest
for the long, chilly winter that will warrant the occasional sweater. And
with the change of season it is now time to reflect upon the True Meaning of
Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is not a time to give thanks.

Thanksgiving is a time to get bumped.

Nothing is ever easy for the airlines. While people rush to fill
seats like never before, the airlines are not yet basking in the glow of big fat
profits. What the economy giveth, fuel prices taketh away, and so we wait,
patiently and eternally, for the glory days of air travel to resume. And
this year brings yet a new fear: the fear of quart sized baggies
overflowing with liquids, creams, gels, and goos of all kinds, gumming up the
security checks and grinding down the patience of travelers and airline
employees everywhere. No, it will not be a beautiful travel dance this
year, since all beauty must fit inside teeny 3 ounce bottles, or be checked away
to airline bag heaven (known by many as “Philly”).

But for the dedicated bumpee, there is a great silver lining to this story.
Big fat profits mean nothing–and more people filling fewer seats means
everything. Bumping is up! Freebies flow forth furiously! All
hopes are pinned on a banner year for the devotee of the bump. While dark
spots persist–the little, er, not so little airline from New York still clings
to its quaint vision of one person, one seat; the desert laborers toil on to
bounce the phantom bookers–the trend is hopeful. For those at Indy have
been punished for their ancient ways; they are now a mere bump in the airline
history books, to be judged harshly for their myopic vision.

As for me, I am poorly qualified to lead the way for this joyous season
with so much potential. I will try my hand on Black Sunday, with a
perfectly jam packed midday flight home. But I am no role model, for I am
flying out on Thanksgiving Day, wimping out on the great potential of Black
Wednesday. And I am not flying on the airline with the big eyes, eating
bigger and bigger airlines at every meal. I may well be be punished with
empty hands and a deep sadness once the airport din subsides. But there is
always next year, and with any luck, the liquids, creams, gels, and goos spilled
over this momentous holiday will have finally been cleaned up by then.

With hopes for blisters on our fingers from signing so many vouchers,

..robert
–
Links to The True Meaning of Thanksgiving, years past:
http://www.rstack.com/thanksgiving/thanksgiving.html

Happy Thanksgiving to all. I’ll be back posting on Monday.