Even Aer Lingus are at it.

Locker10a

Fred Swanson wrote: »

Ryanair don't dare overbook their 3 times a week long distance services to EE.

The cost of having to rebook them on Lufthansa or other flag carriers would be prohibitive. Waiting 2 days for the next flight would be clearly unacceptable.

Yeah you're right, airlines will be very selective on flights they overbook. And a 3 a week flights probably wouldn't be overbookef as these would probably have a low no-show rate. Business routes and other high frequency routes on the other hand would have a high no show rate, for various reasons.
This week I was privy to some information on overbooking from an airline I'd deal with at work. A large UK airline. They have systems in place to calculate how and when they can overbook. They can estimate through these systems that certain flights have a 97% chance of no-shows. We were also told that for this airline alone they have 4 MILLION no-shows per year. That's 4 millions seats booked, that's people just don't show up for. I found this incredible.

adam88

Apart from business routes I'd imagine lc flights would have a good few no shows. At least 7-8 flights I didn't turn up to with Ryanair. Merely because I got them so cheap I didn't mind loosing them

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

CIARAN_BOYLE

adam88 wrote: »

Apart from business routes I'd imagine lc flights would have a good few no shows. At least 7-8 flights I didn't turn up to with Ryanair. Merely because I got them so cheap I didn't mind loosing them

The cityjet Dublin to London city would have a level of overbooking I'd say.

A lot of business day trips services every hour or two so people can be reaccomdodated if needed etc.

Jamie2k9

Aer Lingus tend to do it on busy routes such as Malaga, Faro, London, Amsterdam, Paris etc and it's usually based on historic trends where there is a reasonable level of no shows.

If only I was lucky to get asked to change my plans!

Locker10a

Fred Swanson wrote: »

What sort of routes are they? High frequency, short distance routes or limited availability long distance routes?

I can guarantee that the long distance low frequency low cost runs have very few no shows.

A mixture

Hotblack Desiato

CoisFharraige wrote: »

Anyway, my point being that overbooking can also lead to all pax being changed to another airline, it's usually cheaper for an airline to do a deal with another airline to offload their pax (if there's a low LF) to them and avoid the fees and overnight costs for keeping everyone in the area. Usually goes well, but yes every airline has their own way of juggling passengers when they get caught out.

What about the return flight though? as now EI have an aircraft in Dublin that's not supposed to be there.

I can't see this happening just because a flight is lightly loaded. Almost certainly it was a maintenance issue and no replacement aircraft was available (or it was some other flight with the tech issue and they picked the most lightly loaded flight to cancel and use it as the replacement aircraft)

Fagashlil

Was operating STN-DUB last summer, flight was booked @192, the dispatcher/gate staff let 191 through the gate. The policy is the last 2 to board are removed, but as they'd missed their flight the previous night, ops allowed us to ask for volunteers for €250 and a guaranteed seat on another flight that day. Had at least 20 people offering.

Mebuntu

Fagashlil wrote: »

Was operating STN-DUB last summer, flight was booked @192, the dispatcher/gate staff let 191 through the gate.

Everyone has to have a boarding pass printed (or on a phone) which shows their seat number so how were 189 seats allocated to 191 people?

The policy is the last 2 to board are removed, but as they'd missed their flight the previous night, ops allowed us to ask for volunteers for €250 and a guaranteed seat on another flight that day. Had at least 20 people offering.

What if the last two to board had paid for their seats? Would that be a guarantee of not being asked to forego the flight before those who didn't pay.

Fagashlil

Mebuntu wrote: »

Everyone has to have a boarding pass printed (or on a phone) which shows their seat number so how were 189 seats allocated to 191 people?


What if the last two to board had paid for their seats? Would that be a guarantee of not being asked to forego the flight before those who didn't pay.

As they were standby pax that the dispatcher allowed for some bizarre reason to pas through with standby boarding cards which have no seat allocation. Prehaps he thought they were on duty travel and can therefor occupy a jumpseat. He wasn't the most co-operative or reasonable individual I've had the pleasure of dealing with so don't know his thinking.


That I don't have a definite answer for-am only going by the situation on the particular day.

nuac

Locker10a wrote: »

Yeah you're right, airlines will be very selective on flights they overbook. And a 3 a week flights probably wouldn't be overbookef as these would probably have a low no-show rate. Business routes and other high frequency routes on the other hand would have a high no show rate, for various reasons.
This week I was privy to some information on overbooking from an airline I'd deal with at work. A large UK airline. They have systems in place to calculate how and when they can overbook. They can estimate through these systems that certain flights have a 97% chance of no-shows. We were also told that for this airline alone they have 4 MILLION no-shows per year. That's 4 millions seats booked, that's people just don't show up for. I found this incredible.

So 4 mln seats is just 3 % of their seat sales? Wow

Locker10a

nuac wrote: »

Locker10a wrote: »

Yeah you're right, airlines will be very selective on flights they overbook. And a 3 a week flights probably wouldn't be overbookef as these would probably have a low no-show rate. Business routes and other high frequency routes on the other hand would have a high no show rate, for various reasons.
This week I was privy to some information on overbooking from an airline I'd deal with at work. A large UK airline. They have systems in place to calculate how and when they can overbook. They can estimate through these systems that certain flights have a 97% chance of no-shows. We were also told that for this airline alone they have 4 MILLION no-shows per year. That's 4 millions seats booked, that's people just don't show up for. I found this incredible.

So 4 mln seats is just 3 % of their seat sales? Wow

Ehh no, not sure where you got that from ?

notharrypotter

Locker10a wrote: »

Ehh no, not sure where you got that from ?

Way paragraph is structured.

2 separate facts but in same paragraph.

Airline has 4 million no shows is fact 1.

Airline has software which allows it to identify which flights historically have no show's. I.e. 97% of CERTAIN flights will have no shows of some sort. Fact 2.

Mixed together gives 3% of the airlines passenger numbers equates 4million people.

Comhrá

Could a mod correct the misspelt thread title, please? It's glaringly uncorrected for a while now.