Denied boarding? Offloaded? Bumped? What you need to know.
You’ve probably seen recent video footage of passengers being forcibly removed from flights – but how can you limit the chance of this happening to you?
Firstly, the facts – this is more common in the US than anywhere else.
Taking United Airlines as an example, in 2016 4.3 passengers out of every 100,000 were denied boarding (industry average being 6.2 passengers).
Alarmingly, this figure for United is down 44 percent on the previous year!
So why does this happen?
Historically, airlines have always overbooked flights to allow for an expected percentage of cancellations or no-shows, as well as passengers travelling on ‘back to back’ tickets.
Airlines factor these elements into seat sales/loads and often sell places on flights that effectively have zero availability.
It’s easy to see why – ‘why not sell a few extra seats at the most expensive price we can? Not all the passengers will turn up anyway!’.
Intelligent systems further enable this, with risks calculated to avoid problems via upgrades (or sometimes downgrades), alternative flight offers, compensation and hotel stays.
How we handle being denied boarding
Recently, a client of mine travelling through Dubai was delayed, resulting in a missed connection.
The airline re-booked the client 24 hours later and offered to put them up in a hotel but this was no good as the delay would’ve caused serious problems.
When I investigated on the client’s behalf, I found an earlier connection that they had been told was fully booked in fact had one Business Class seat available and four further seats in First Class.
I was able to hold the Business Class seat in our system and contacted the ticket desk to talk to an airline employee directly.
Despite their initial insistence that the client would need to travel the next day as Business Class was overbooked, I highlighted the various available seats and requested a complimentary upgrade.
Although I was told this wasn’t an option as it was ‘against policy’, by securing the one remaining Business Class seat I was able to present the following options to the airline:
- I would issue a new ticket at full fare, then look to reclaim it back from the airline
- The airline could re-validate the ticket on to the earlier flight and send a much happier customer on their way
Thankfully, shortly after I received a call from my client confirming their rebooking on the earlier flight, reducing their wait by ten hours.
Top tips to prevent being bumped
Here are my top five tips to avoid being bumped, offloaded or denied boarding.
- Take advantage of an Airline Membership
I would never expect an Airline Membership Gold or Silver card holders to be denied or bumped, so consider the benefits of building some points or miles with one.
- Select a seat
Always try and select a seat at the time of booking, a chosen seat is far better than no seat.
- Check in online
Having a boarding pass with that all important seat number certainly reduces your chances of this problem.
- Check in early
If a flight is overbooked, don’t check in late – this a very common reason for an airline to bump passengers.
- Watch out for tight connections
An airline may try to use a tight connection as a reason, if the flight is delayed – a slightly longer connection could get you there sooner.
Of course the above hints won’t 100 percent guarantee that you won’t ever be offloaded but hopefully they’ll improve your odds.
Happy Travelling!
To discuss how we can help you avoid any unforeseen problems with your booking, please talk to us today.