For starting a one woman campaign against Easyjet's overbooking policy...

[onelittlefish]

I cam home from Spain today. At check-in I was told "sorry madam, the flight is overbooked - would you mind staying until Saturday. We will give you compensation" - obviously my answer is no. I have two children who I would like to see.

Anyway, at the gates to go on the aeroplane I see an elderly lady and man having a bit of an argument. Because they were the last to check-in they were told they had to get off the plane because there was no room for them. They tried ardently to stop them from taking their baggage off the plane but there was nothing that could be done - the men on the ground had already taken their luggage off and they were told they had to stay.

As the air stewardesses were herding us like cattle on to the plane into our shrunken economy seats, we were told "the flight is completely full, please make your way down the plane and hurry up", again we were told "this flight is COMPLETELY full". They were proud of the fact they had just kicked an elderly couple off the plane, and I felt they had no right to be proud of themselves. The couple wanted to leave.

Now what I did not realise is that overbooking a flight is now a common practice on EAsyjet flights (and other flights). It feels morally wrong to me. The point is that when I book a place on a flight it means I want to fly on that day. I have fulfilled my side of a contract - their side of the contract is that I should be able to fly on that particular day, that I paid for. Does anyone else think easy jet is outrageous or is this one woman campaign going to fizzle to nothing.

I've had it twice on KLM. The first time they asked for volunteers to fly to Teesside instead of Leeds - they got a free taxi back plus £150 in vouchers. The second time I got bumped up to business class.

it has happenned for years was going to wedding in kuala lumpar about 5 years ago and there had been a problem with plane and replacement was smaller, asked for volunteers o re route via manchester so arrived 5 hours later ( still 3 days before weddings ) and got a free return ticket to simlar destination within 12 months so free trip to singnapore next year....... that was fly emirates

BA and everyone do it as it is actually mostly business tickets that are block booked but occasionally it does not work and definitely the last to check in will be booted if no volunteers but mostly there is

Overbooking has been going on for decades. Savvy travelers rely on it to get either compensation or upgrades on future flights.

I thought everyone knew about this as it has been going on for years?! I always pray for a full plane so we can get bumped up to business class! Wooh! It's never happened but I can pray! I love a plane that is not full so you get more space, but wow I'd love a chance to sit in business class!!

You always gotta get to check in nice an early so then you don't risk missing your flight or any other mis-hap.

As everyone says common practise. They rely on the fact that there will be someone for whom the time/date of their arrival is not crucial and will accept compensation to take another flight.

More appalling is BAs practise of canceling whole flights because they are not sufficiently full. A few years back I booked flights to NYC for £500 direct with BA. Three weeks before we were due to leave BA cancelled the flight and offered to put us on a flight leaving later that day. Of course they didn't have any £500 seats left, only £950. Not only that but we couldn't simply pay the excess we had to pay for the new flights and wait until they saw fit to refund the original £500. Which took 3 bloody months, countless phone calls and a letter threatening court action.

Bastards

The compensation really isn't that good. Often you get put on a two or three leg journey with layovers, and money/vouchers off your next flight with the company. I have never been offered money or a place to stay.

And now you can elect to pay for an upgrade or be bumped off. No free upgrades any more

I fly a lot and have always been offered a minimum of 150 quid for economy or 450 for business. A few years ago my brother was offered 150 and then they ended up having space for him in business so he got 150 plus an upgrade. He was v happy.

Back in the days when only BA or Air India flew to delhi BA was absolutely notorious for overbooking the flight. There was always a form at check in offering money to those who would fly the next day.

Oreocrumbs there is a pecking order for upgrades and it is usually frequent fliers first in order of tier level. Always, always ask for an upgrade though and, if you're one of the first on the flight and not with kids then go straight up to one of the flight crew and ask for an upgrade. In the last 5 years (pre kids) I flew more in premium economy/business than I did in Economy all from asking for upgrades.

Just to clarify, the people who often miss flights are oftenbusiness people who have booked fully exchangeable/ fully refundable tickets.

eg If DH thinks he might be able to get the 5pm flight, but will probably have to get the 7pm one, depending on how meetings go, he'll book onto both, just no-show for the missed one and the company get the refund the next day.

Overbooking is common practice in any industry where fixed costs are very high- it's cheaper to pay compensation in the 10% of times you have to than to fly with a plane which is 20% empty

Also I was once a no show for an EasyJet flight. I called to cancel the ticket but, of course, couldn't get a refund and was told it would cost 5 pounds to cancel my ticket. So it was cheaper for me to just not turn up.

The problem is worse on economy airlines because they often dont have another flight for days/ till the next weekend

DH went to a wedding in Spain with Ryan Air. On the way back, the pilot drove the plane into the terminal on departure. Everyone told to get off- flight cancelled. Dh sprinted to the rebooking queue, but even so was told that they could fly him to belfast on Tuesday (it was Saturday, and he flew out of Stanstead). He just paid to fly back BA but if you had no money I have no idea what you'd do

It is a drawback of the budget airlines- "it's all fine till it's not fine" but when you're paying 50 quid you have to expect that they're going to be cutting corners somewhere, right? You can't expect much more IMO.

Wow, comrade. Certainly not my experience with US airlines. I was offered 1000 air miles if I took a 24 hour delay, then 2 part journey instead of direct. No overnight accommodation or even bag check offered.

1000 air miles is worth next to nothing.

And at the check in and gates they now advertise the cost of upgrading, no way to get it but to pay.

They are just utter arseholes who you cant reason with. My folks booked a ticket to the UK for the middle of December then a return to Spain for the end of January.. (though were spending the time in the US flying from Gatwick).

Easyjet cancelled their return flight to Spain which they didnt know about until they turned up at the airport, Easyjet just argued they had 'informed' them of the cancellation in writing to their HOME address in Spain and tough luck there wern't any flights for another three days and no offer of a hotel.

Easyjet just couldn't see what the problem was, they absolved themselves of any responsibility due to writing to my folks home.... while they were on holiday

YANBU. I can't stand Easyjet. Arrogant attitudes, unfair policies and rude staff IMO.

There was a recent Ryanair case when they called the police to remove someone, and they ended up having to apologise.

www.metro.co.uk/news/875345-ryanair-passenger-faced-with-police-for-refusing-to-leave-overbooked-plane

That was a bit different though, because she wasn't last on.

As for budget airlines cutting corners, yes that's fine. Hence no 'complimentary' refreshments, being charged for bags etc. No issue there. This goes beyond corner cutting though.

It would be extremely wasteful for all flights to be flying 20% empty just to ensure noone ever got bumped. It would mean more flights, more fuel, more environmental impact.

I don't really see the problem, as long as the airlines provide decent compensation. It's rare that there's no one on the plane who wouldn't rather take compensation. If you don't want to get bumped, check in in good time.

Of course, there could be some situations in which it's impossible to check in early for reasons you couldn't predict/alter - but travel is inherently unpredictable: if the airport's closed because of snow or fog or a bomb scare, or your train breaks down en route to the airport, etc., etc., you won't be flying either. When you travel, these are the risks you take.

I recommend being delayed by Singapore Airlines. Went to the airport in Singapore to find chaos, the previous night's flight had been cancelled for some reason so they had all been booked on to our flight. The very polite check in staff were juggling persuading people to give up their seats and let people from our flight on who were desperate, with people getting really nasty and yelling in their faces.
We though, extra 12 hours in Singapore can't be that bad, even the airport is nice and we could always book into the airport hotel for a sleep and shower. Compensation - $500 each, taxi to and from a hotel, lunch at the hotel, dinner at the hotel. We spent a few happy hours swimming and sunbathing at the hotel, had a massage and reflexology out of our spending money, and then flew home. They couldn't fit us into business class, so they gave us vouchers to upgrade on our next trip with them. Perfect!

As for budget airlines cutting corners, yes that's fine. Hence no 'complimentary' refreshments, being charged for bags etc. No issue there. This goes beyond corner cutting though.

Not really- the cup of tea/ baggage policy/print your boarding card is a drop in the cost savings ocean compared to the savings made by always flying completely or almost full- that's how they are cheap.

You do get what you pay for. There is a reason they can afford to fly you to Alicante for a tenner.

We were due to fly to Finland with BMi last year. Tried to check in online at about 10pm (flight was at 7am) to discover that our flight no longer existed. No notification, nothing. We had to book last minute seats through BA for 3x the cost of our original seats. We eventually got a refund from BMI, but it took hours of phone calls, multiple emails ( the email address they first provided us with didn't exist) and three months to sort out.

But RichMan, when you're not allowed on the plane, you haven't got what you paid for. Quite the opposite. And that's the problem.

The difference between what you are describing and what most airlines do is that they normally tell you when you check in "this flight is full", they don't put your bags on the plane and take them off again. That's silly and inefficient.

"Budget" is one thing, but consideration and politeness don't cost anything.

This happened to us coming back from Vancouver about 10 years ago; however, they gave us dinner, compensation and got us on a flight that was straight back to UK, rather than faffing about changing at Frankfurt. As ds was 5 at the time, it worked for us, he slept all the way back.

Business They probably assumed (based on experience) that someone else would agree to be bumped and the couple could go, and then it didn't turn out that way.

Flangelina Not really, because when you book any flight, you accept the risk that overbooking happens, so you know that you may not be able to get that flight if you are slack about checking in etc. With a budget airline you accept the risk that that is more likely to happen and that the compensation will not be as good as for a national carrier. It's not as though only budget airlines overbook.

No-one is being forced to fly budget. You can always choose another carrier or not go. I, for example, just refuse to fly Ryan Air as I don't think the trade off is worth it. Easyjet I have always found to be okay but I always check in online as soon as the check in opens.

This is actually what I used to do for a living . All airlines overbook flights, it's just the norm. There's a whole science to calculating how many people are likely to no show and how many seats you can oversell (as well as how many seats you sell at what price).

The airline I used to work for would typically overbook by 20 seats on a flight and it was rare to have to bump someone off. If those 20 seats hadn't been sold then the tickets would be higher for everyone else.

That's why, if it's really, really important for me to fly on a certain date on a plane I know will be crowded I make sure I'm there well in advance.

Agree decent compensation should be paid though but that's what you get flying a budget airline.