| Augen said: I fly Delta for business and I've seen overbooking occur from time to time. Airlines do this because they figure a certain percentage of people no show on flights. However, every time this happens they announce before boarding and offer $500, a hotel if needed, and next available flight. If no one takes voluntarily it there is generally a tiered system for tickets so some people know going in their seat is the most likely to be "bumped". Friend of mine flies this way and has endured multiple "bumps" or even ruined trips in attempt to save money and has received $500 towards other flights. He grumbles, but he has never been on the flight and then asked to leave at random. I'd say every airline should view this as an example of how not to handle this situation. Bad news sucks and customers are never going to be happy about it, but heading off bad news is the sign of good management to mitigate damage. |
United offered the 500 before boarding then 800 and hotel after boarding. 3 out of the 4 seats they needed was given up. The 4th was not. I am sure in hindsight United should have upped the value to 1K but probably did not because employees only do as much as the guidelines tell them to.
The problem with United is that they should have handled the situation themselves before calling security. As you stated once people get on the flight, then stuff like this can occur and secuirty doesn't know or care about the image of the airline. Once they are called, they only know that a passenger was asked to leave and they will not. They will go through the motion all the way up to force. Forcing a passenger off the plane was never going to look good but security doesn't know or care because that is not their job. If left under United they probably would have seen this issue and just up the incentive like first class seat or more money.
