Defining the Oversold Airline Flight - What it Means to You
It seems that more flights today are oversold than not, and for a lot of people this is a source of endless frustration when it comes to air travel. The truth of the matter is that it doesn't have to be the bane of your existence, making you worry for days before the day of your scheduled flight. The truth of the matter is that the oversold flight syndrome only affects you if you let if affect you. Not convinced? It's true, well, with a little finagling it is.
An oversold flight is a flight for which there are more seats sold than there are physical passenger seats on the plane. Airlines do this because they know, statistically, how many people are likely to show up and how many people are likely to miss their scheduled flight. If their own records show that 3% of passengers habitually miss their flights, which means that, theoretically, they can sell 3% more tickets for each flight and never have any problem. This increases their income by 3%, but it doesn't cost them anything in operational costs. The exception, of course, is the flight for which only 1% or none of the passengers miss the flight. When this happens, there are too many people sitting in the boarding area; their statistics have been skewed and a passenger or two are going to be asked to volunteer to take a later flight.
Passengers get antsy at this point; nobody wants to be the person who has to wait around the airport for that elusive 'next flight'. Somehow, it seems like the worst fate in the world to get 'bumped' when it comes to air travel. However, there are a few good options at this dreaded moment. One option is in seizing the moment, the other option (and this one you have to have prepared beforehand) involves sitting securely and waiting for someone else to succumb to the pressure of volunteering.
Seizing this 'volunteer' moment is for people who don't need to be at their destination at the time that they were scheduled to arrive. As long as your schedule is flexible and nobody is coming to pick you up, you might just want to jump in and volunteer to be that person getting bumped. When you volunteer to wait for the next flight, you get a voucher for a free airline ticket. Not bad for simply spending an hour or two more in the airport.
The other option is to sit tight, securely, knowing that you will not be the one to get bumped. The airline employees always ask for volunteers and usually someone steps up in order to claim a free ticket. If no volunteers step up, someone who does not have a reserved seat will get 'bumped'. Now, having a ticket doesn't mean you have a reserved seat. A reserved seat means that you have a boarding pass in your hand and that there is a seat number printed on it. If you do not yet have an assigned seat, your name will be one of the few on that list of possible passengers to bump to the next flight.
If you are not somebody who is interested in maybe getting a free ticket as compensation for changing your schedule, you should always reserve a seat as early as possible. In most instances, it is possible to reserve one's seat when buying a ticket in the first place. If you are not given the option while buying, ask about it. If you are booking through a website and choosing a seat is not one of the options, call the airline directly and request a seat assignment. Once you have done this, you can rest assured that at that dreaded moment you will not be the one packing up and heading to Starbucks, and then to another gate in two hours; you'll be getting happily on the plane.
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