Bumped passengers can sue if they suffered damages

Greebo

N9017H - C172M (1976)
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Retired Evil Overlord
Father who's vacation with daughter was ruined by overbooking by Continental wins suit for reimbursement plus damages:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Continental_Bump_Lawsuit.html

(See link)

I think this is only fair. If the airlines are going to take your money and promise you a service then fail to deliver it because of their practice of overselling flights, just getting a refund isn't necessarily enough, as the story above reveals.

Good call on the Judges part.
 
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Re: Pumped passengers can sue if they suffered damages

Greebo said:
Father who's vacation with daughter was ruined by overbooking by Continental wins suit for reimbursement plus damages:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Continental_Bump_Lawsuit.html

(See link)

I think this is only fair. If the airlines are going to take your money and promise you a service then fail to deliver it because of their practice of overselling flights, just getting a refund isn't necessarily enough, as the story above reveals.

Good call on the Judges part.
agreed. I understand the overbooking policy, but what they should do instead is work it like hotels. If you purchase a ticket, you pay. If you don't show up, you pay, unless you cancel in enough time for them to resell your ticket. No need to overbook then.
 
Everybody likes the cheap airfares we have readily available but it's a poker game keeping them near rock bottom in cost. Taking booking risks lowers costs all around at the expense of a few unlucky individuals that should have been informed of the gamble, in writing, on their ticket purchase agreement.
 
I only buy that to a very limited degree Dave. What Continental did in this case was absolutely unacceptable. Even in their terms of service (http://www.continental.com/travel/policies/customerfirst/co_customer_first.2005091601.pdf page 25), there is no hint that the bumped passengers will be given priority on the next available flight, which they should if they got bumped involuntarily through no fault of their own. The document talks about arriving within 2 hours or over 2 hours, not days and days late.

These two got bumped not for a matter of hours, but for a matter of days, losing thousands in non-refundable hotel funds in the process.

You can justify overbooking to a limited extent - but not to this extent. The fine print may say, "Hey, we know what we said about getting you there on this date and time but in fact, you're lucky if you get there within a week of that time" but that doesn't make it right, and if it is legal, it shore as hell shouldn't be.
 
Greebo said:
I only buy that to a very limited degree Dave. What Continental did in this case was absolutely unacceptable. Even in their terms of service (http://www.continental.com/travel/policies/customerfirst/co_customer_first.2005091601.pdf page 25), there is no hint that the bumped passengers will be given priority on the next available flight, which they should if they got bumped involuntarily through no fault of their own. The document talks about arriving within 2 hours or over 2 hours, not days and days late.

These two got bumped not for a matter of hours, but for a matter of days, losing thousands in non-refundable hotel funds in the process.

You can justify overbooking to a limited extent - but not to this extent. The fine print may say, "Hey, we know what we said about getting you there on this date and time but in fact, you're lucky if you get there within a week of that time" but that doesn't make it right, and if it is legal, it shore as hell shouldn't be.

Personally I'd prefer they just sell no more than the MAX seats available per plane at the slightly elevated price that that would require but well known, consistant deficiencies in human factors, combined with equipment and weather scenarios to boot, yields the unpleasant possibilities we now observe and deal with.
 
Greebo said:
... no fault of their own.

While it is true that someone is going to be bumped off an overbooked flight
it doesn't have to be you. If you arrive 2 hours early and check in you
should get seats. IIRC, the airlines assign about 50% of the seats
ahead of time. If you buy a ticket and don't get a seat assignment
then you are "fighting" for the remaining 50%. If you arrive 2 hours
early you can pretty much gaurentee yourself a seat. The four
of us went to Hawaii last year, I didn't have seat assignments in
either direction. When I got to the counter 2 hours early I had no
problem getting exit row seating both ways.

greg
 
Dave Krall CFII said:
Personally I'd prefer they just sell no more than the MAX seats available per plane at the slightly elevated price that that would require but well known, consistant deficiencies in human factors, combined with equipment and weather scenarios to boot, yields the unpleasant possibilities we now observe and deal with.

What burns me is that they can overbook and bump you off, but if you buy a non-refundable ticket and don't show, you're out the money. IMO if you buy a non-returnable ticket, that should buy you a seat, period.
 
Dave Krall CFII said:
Personally I'd prefer they just sell no more than the MAX seats available per plane at the slightly elevated price that that would require but well known, consistant deficiencies in human factors, combined with equipment and weather scenarios to boot, yields the unpleasant possibilities we now observe and deal with.

Unless they have changed their policy recently, JetBlue doesn't overbook.
 
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