Airline Overbooking Flights

[AERO DYNAMIK]

Generally by what percentage of the number of seats onboard an aircraft do airlines overbook these seats

[MonarchA330]

So I was told during my Passenger Service Agent training, airlines are legally allowed to overbook by upto a whopping 25%, but most limit this to 20%.
Still, though, on a 747 thats potentially almost 100pax overbooked is it not?
M330

[bealine]

It's also more dangerous territory these days, due to the high proportion of low-yield restricted tickets sold, and the subsequent lower number of high-yield fully refundable, fully flexible tickets.

Pax who know they stand to lose their money for no-showing tend to turn up for their flight - I wonder why?

[Krysten]

as a general rule LoCos and a few charters won't overbook at all. mostly because they expect everyone to turn up!

[PAXboy]

As I undestand it, the percentages are very closely controled, based on experience. Naturally, they know how many folks do not show for that flight on the different days and weeks of the year. For a computer to ensure that overbooking is 11% on a Tuesday but 14% for the same flight on a Wednesday, is child's play. So the answer is probably "anything up to 20%".

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"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you any different." Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

[Globaliser]

It also depends on the market(s) concerned. Some markets have a very high rate of late cancellations because of the way tix are sold there. For example, HKG has a lot of travel agent bookings that are traditionally unticketed until the very last minute. So people hold many speculative and multiple bookings and cancel late. The airlines thus have to overbook by considerably more to try to ensure that they have a decent load on the day. I was once told that my HKG-SYD was overbooked by more than 100 pax in Y (at about 2½ months out) - and yet it still went out only 90% full.

Makes for some interesting times in yield management, though!

[surely not]

Spot on PaxBoy. The non loco scheduled airlines have departments that do nothing but manage yield and loads. they will compare a route by dates of operation year v year, time of operation, monthly, weekly and on and on. On some routes the no show factor will be very low, therefore overbooking will be down to 2-3 pax. Other routes will have a massive no show rate and on these the overbooking will be 50+. I can remember occassions when a route to West Africa was oversold by 150 and went with 20+ empty seats and no one left behind!

This section will also make a note of trade fairs around the world as these can have a significant affect on loads on a given route.

although it does occassionally go wrong, the additional revenue earned is worth the time and effort. If only pax cancelled bookings they weren't going to use, didn't get delayed elsewhere, didn't die between making the booking and the flight date etc etc.

[CargoOne]

Airlines are running statistics on no-show for every particular route, date of the week and time of departure, so based on that airlines are variying allowed overbooking in the system.

There are some markets where the late booking cancellations are heavy, also there are some "no-show is typical" markets. I remeber the days when I've been working in a different hot areas where the war/revolution could start any hour and our company policy (as well as many other companies policy) was to have fully flexible C ticket and to call airline EVERY day 45 min before departure and to rebook yourself for the next flight and have the seat confirmed. At some stage there was some 50-60 people doing that for the same flight.

[Piltdown Man]

It varies from 0 to 15% ish, depending on Class, Price, route, timing. There is no legal minima or maxima, just an economic penalty if you overbook by too much or too little.

[PAXboy]

If all pax who booked turned up for every flight of every day of every carrier - then there would be no overbooking! It is other people to blame, not the carriers as such.

The carrier is entitled to make the maximum amount of revenue they can. They balance the denied boarding against the empty seats and plan accordingly. Upsetting people with denied boarding is not in a carrier biz plan, so they will always seek to minimise.

It used to be that one 'confirmed' the flight a day or two before departure, particularly for long haul. However, carriers found that in recent 10/20 years, this made little difference to the no-shows. So they saved themselves the cost of having to reconfirm. Turning up early for check-in is the most certain way of getting on the flight!

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"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you any different." Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

[Globaliser]

PAXboy: Upsetting people with denied boarding is not in a carrier biz plan, so they will always seek to minimise.

Unless, it seems, their fleets are full of N- registered aircraft. In which case they hand out vouchers for future travel like confetti to bribe confirmed pax into moving onto other flights - incidentally depressing their future yields in the process.

As if they haven't already found enough ways to depress their yields through other forms of pax bribery ...

[bealine]

It is other people to blame, not the carriers as such.

........er! Not always! For years, the sheer stupidity of IATA fare agreements has meant that, in the majority of APEX tickets the Return Fare is cheaper than a One Way!

If I was going to travel to Manchester in one direction only (which a lorra people do) , do you think I'd buy a one-way ticket? Would I 'eck as like!!!

Now, this applies quite liberally across UK Domestic, European short-haul and even some Long-Haul destinations. Loadsa people buying return tix with absolutely no intention of flying the return sector! You surely can't blame the pax for this fiasco!

[Helli-Gurl]

This might sound a bit niave...but what happens if everyone turns up on these over booked flights?

x

[40 yearflyer]

Overbooking

BA overbooked by 50 (fifty) on a flight Phoenix -Heathrow. They all turned up (ps- a 747 - work out the %). The usual $200 (I think) to persuade would be pasengers to wait a day had to be 'upped' to an unbelievable $600. I do not know if all 50 were offered this amount or perhaps the last ten or so.
Air Canada cabin staff once told me that 'certain' holidaymakers rely on overbooking to fund their holidays....

[bealine]

I do not know if all 50 were offered this amount or perhaps the last ten or so.

BA has a policy to pay all "volunteers" and "denied boarders" equally. If the first man accepted an offer of $200 and subsequently the offer was upped to $600, then the first man would be pleasantly surprised to find that he received more than he originally agreed!

'Tis the British spirit of "fair play" you know!!!