Originally Posted by
framer
Why would you bother with call-off contracts ( you'd have to audit them regularly as well) when the whole thing can be fixed by offering a few hundred bucks to the pax to voluntarily disembark? It's cheap.
It's the final(?) layer in a layered contingency plan. We've established that for a short-notice DH aircrew demand the airline have no legal right to
insist that a reserved/confirmed fare-paying passenger give up their seat either under Title 14 or the airline's CoC (as currently written). So if the need arises your plan would start with an escalating set of options to see if one can be induced to volunteer:
1. Upgrade to 1st class on the next flight in a few hours, with first class lounge until then
2. As (1) but with a free meal in the best restaurant at/near the airport
2a. As (2) but with free 5-star overnight accomodation including movies and minibar (where the next flight is the next day)
3. As (2/2a) but with ticket refund.
4. As (3) but with free return ticket on any of that airline's routes instead of the refund - option upgrade to 1st class on that bonus ticket, and/or extra ticket for partner & kids as potential deal closers
5. As (2/2a) but with a cash inducement up to some budget value (staff would need to be trained in how to find the required level here so that they don't all go to the max value.
Now all of that could be handed out as a tick-list to any passengers at the gate who respond to the question "would you be prepared to be bumped to the next flight if we offered some incentives?" You tell them it's a reverse auction - we need four seats so the lowest four bids win! You then collect in the forms and I would expect that MOST of the time you'd be able to select the winners in a matter of minutes - especially if you had the braincells to prepare by knowing when the next available flight with seats available actually was and had briefed it as you handed out the forms.
But you can't absolutely guarrantee it. You have no right to demand, and there will always be the time when half the fl;ight are all travelling to the same wedding and the other half are all due in court two hours after the flight lands to answer the same charges of election fraud (or WHY) and no amount of inducement in money, hotels, call-girls or free tickets will change their minds. So you need an ultimate contingency, and that is when you'd consider flying the DH crews in a chartered aeroplane.
But by this stage it's getting urgent, and you don't want to have to waste time negotiating rates and getting some senior bean-counter off the golf course to sign the purchase requisition. You want an established process that simply sends an email to each of the operators on the call-off contract to find who can fulfill the urgent demand. You choose the one that best suits the need and that's it. The small operator just submits an invoice for the pre-agreed amount under the established contract and gets paid after the usual 30 days (or whatever). No need for costly and time-wasting commercial actions or authorisation.
We do it with hire cars, stationary supplies, building repairs etc and this would just be another one.