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Which airlines are you most likely to get kicked off?
According to the Department of Transportation, more people were involuntarily bumped from their flights last year than in over a decade. The total comes to a whopping 63,000 very angry passengers who had no choice but to give up their seats because of an overbooked flight.An additional 620,000 passengers voluntarily gave up their seats last year to get those free-flight vouchers and other goodies the airlines dangle. So which airlines have the worst habit of overbooking? Delta had the highest rate of involuntary bumps followed by Continental.
An involuntary bump really sucks. What if you had to urgently get somewhere? Or what if the next flight leaves two days later? What if your $3,000 cruise will be leaving the port without you unless you get on the flight?
The silver lining here is that the DOT is thinking about mandating airlines to give passengers up to $400 who are bumped, but end up flying out within 2 hours. The vouchers would escalate to $800 for longer delays.
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You'd hate to get kicked off Singapore Airlines, with their amazing new A380 -- it has a king-size bed! Check it out:
Gallery: Singapore Airlines' Airbus A380
Filed under: Airlines
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Teri Feb 9th 2008 1:13PM
This is all the result of deregulation. Name one thing that got better as a result of deregulation in this country. Big business never does anything good for customers out of the goodness of their hearts. They has to be FORCED to treat people like human beings through laws and regulations. AND those laws and regulations have to be ENFORCED! That's how the people get protected from big business unfortunately.
G Goodrich Feb 9th 2008 1:24PM
Doug...you're an inconsiderate dimwit and an obvious jaded airline employee! The fact that we give over our lives to airline pilots and flight attendants is indeed one thing and absolutely deserves respect, but to say that we, as airline passengers, who pay hundreds sometimes thousands for roundtrip tickets, should be shrugged off with complete disregard to our needs as PAYING customers is flat-out INADMISSABLE! This overbooking policy by the airlines is objectionable and sleazy, dirty business that takes advantage of everyday citizens and must be stopped. Someone should file a class-action law suit against the industry and break this reckless, underhanded practice! The airlines get there money for no-shows so why should they be allowed to manipulate and degrade those who do show up and follow through with their plans. At a minimum, a policy needs to be established that warns potential passengers that they are purchasing an overbooked flight and that they may be required to move to a stand-by flight status for another flight.
Al T Feb 9th 2008 1:38PM
You liberals think you're entitled to the world when anything inconveniences you! Let the market decide if the airline is going to give you anything. You paid your money- you admitted that something could go wrong, including delays! It's the airline company's money now and if you don't like it you should realize that it's much worse to regulate the airlines when you should have known that they overbook 1/3 of their flights.
Amy Feb 9th 2008 3:01PM
Our family of seven flew Delta this past Christmas, from Tampa to L.A. The flight to Atlanta was fine. The plane was late taxiing up to the gate though for our layover in Atla. We got off, the flight attendants knew we were coming back, and told us to put something on our seats to "save" them. We were told not to take our carryons because we'd be right back. After we ate and went to get back on the plane we were told it was full and we couldn't get back on-couldn't even get our carryons! We were astounded. The next flight was over 12.5 hours away. We were promised we'd all sit in first class for our trouble. First they took one seat away, then when we finally were getting on the plane 12.5 hours later, they bumped one more first class seat. Furthermore, because of their bumping us in the first place, we had to go a hotel for a few days because we missed going to San Diego that very first day. My sister was getting married and the only time we had was the very day we landed. In addition, because I had been up over 27 hours without any sleep, I got very sick and had to stay away from the family I came to see-for three days. The whole thing was a total nightmare! And the return flight home, that I had booked WEEKS ago? First they "couldn't find us anywhere" on the computer, then when they finally did, ALL our seats were in different rows of the plane, NOT like I had booked! DELTA just called me this week after receiving our complaint letter. Even though the supervisor admitted it was their fault and apologized profusely, they are ONLY offering us a refund of what we spent during our long stay in the airport (not the hotel we had to get) and seven $100 vouchers for our next flight!!!!!!! Yeah, right! After asking to speak with someone else because that wasn't acceptable to us, we were told we could not, because she "was it".
UNFREAKINBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!!!!!
Teddy Bare Feb 9th 2008 7:04PM
One way to end all this would be to only sell tickets for the EXACT number of seats on the plane. These seats would be yours no matter what and if you didn't show up, you would still pay for them.
After all, if you buy tickets to a rock concert or a Broadway show, they don't care if your mother died....they don't give you back your money just because you didn't show.
There would be exceptions for change of planes (to a smaller one) because of mechanical problems or your connecting flight was late.
But the public doesn't really want it that way. They want to buy a ticket and if they don't fly for some reason, they want their money back.......after all they didn't fly!