Looking for Statistics on Flight Ticket Cancellations

KpsCowley

Hi Guys,

I am looking for information that I have not been able to get by trawling the interweb.

I am doing a project which involves individuals cancelling their flight tickets (not flight cancellations). I am looking for statistics of this, i.e. 1 in every X amount of people cancel or do not turn up for their flight. Also when do people cancel in relation to the flight date. Also some Airlines allow name changes, I was looking for stats on this too. I am focusing on European airlines.

I am sure that the airlines have all this information themselves, but surely someone has done a research project on this? Or maybe someone out there has access to the stats and they wouldn't mind sharing?

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated, I have tried every other avenue I could think of (Airline do not give out these stats).

Thanks.

Tenger

You said it yourself.....airlines do not give out this info....
therefore no-one will have this info or be in a position to give this info to you.

Calina

This is commercially sensitive information. The odds that you will get it from anyone who might have gotten it from an airline are close to nil because if anyone outside an airline got it for research, it would be with a lot of strings attached including non-disclosure.

KpsCowley

Thanks Tenger and Calina,

I suppose the only remaining option would be to create a survey on an online survey site, such as SurveyMonkey.

Wish me luck

Stovepipe

A lot of the time, flights are mass booked by corporations such as banks. A friend of mine worked in one of the pillar banks and told me that they used to buy a thousand seats every January, depending on which cities they expected to need to fly people to. Naturally, not all seats were used up in any given year so they'd get a refund. The tickets would be the expensive, flexible kind, predominantly business class. I asked one of our Reservations people about it and she confirmed it. A lot of that was cut back when the boom disappeared but it was standard practise for many firms for many years.

Tenger

I also happen to know a guy who travels lot to the UK for business. He books 6-8 return flights every month with Ryanair when they have a sale.
3-4 month later when he needs to meet business associates in the UK, he can tell them "'I'm avail next Thursday/Friday to meet you" In the end he usually actually travels 3 times a month, so he 'wastes 3-4 bookings, but he usually gets the cheaper tickets anyway. Saves him having to buy expensive last minute flights.

fits

I end up not taking about 20% of my booked flights Id say. usually I find I have to change and I haven't booked a changeable ticket. Drives me crazy! SAS are very good in terms of allowing changes on cheap tickets.

L1011

I've speculatively booked flights for football matches on basis that I might go to them, generally only when they're still at the lowest possible fare code. Don't have the time off to even consider it anymore; that and EI no longer do the late flight back from LGW. But I'd say I didn't use about 70% of those. Matches would get moved for Sky coverage or the FA Cup etc; I'd get offered overtime to work that day (at a lot more than the sunk cost of the ticket) and so on.