Originally Posted by
son of lockman
Several months ago I left the United States to make a new home and get married. Making my flights arrangements a month in advance. Now when I was about to board the plane I was told it was full and that I wouldn't be able to get on.
Well f#ck that bullsh#t as I left and went to customer relations to solve my problem. Well I was told I'd have to wait and board the next day and that was it. Well f#ck that bullsh#t and I demanded a room and food.
Well they said sorry. Well f#ck that bullsh#t and I demanded to see the terminal manager or who was ever in charge of the place and sat down and parked my #ss right in front of the stand.
Well low and behold within sereval minutes this woman showed up and was so nice. She gave me a fantastic room and 3 free meals, but that was not all and the reason I'm writing this.
She cuts me a check for $1300 dollars. Bewildered I didn't ask why but grabbed the check and headed for the bank to deposit it. And it was good.
The next day I caught my flight and now am living out of the United States and very happily married.
But why did they give me $1300 dollars? Anyone have any idea? Sure would appreciate some thoughts on this.
Sonny
Congrats on getting married, and I think I can explain what happened.
When you are ticketed by a US airline, they have to seat you by law. There is no such thing as "The flight's full, sir, your ticket is not valid anymore."
Then how did it happen?
Airlines sometimes engage in a (legal) practice called "overbooking", where they actually sell more seats than the plane has, assuming that a certain percentage of people will cancel.
They have computers to predict, from historical data, how many people will cancel, and usually get it pretty close. They also oversell fewer than the expected cancellations. So if this flight is expected to have 10 cancellations, maybe they'll oversell 6 tickets (I'm just making this number up -- I don't know the actual formula).
They especially like to target certain destinations with a high cancellation rate.
Anyway, sometimes real life does not go as computers predict, which leaves the airline in bad shape when everyone shows up. They simply don't have enough seats.
However, they can't simply turn you away. They are required to rectify the situation.
They can do this one of two ways:
1) Book you on an equivalent airline that leaves right around the same time. (They can't make you wait any unreasonable length of time to be rebooked, though. For example, they can't tell you to take a flight on a different airline three hours later, even if they pay for and arrange anything.)
2) Ask other passengers to voluntarily get off the plane, to make room for you. They get these passengers to do so with offers of cash, airline credit, and other perks. Usually they will announce, "We are offering $500 (or whatever), 2 meals, and a hotel room to any passenger who wishes to give up their seat and fly tomorrow instead." If no one takes the offer, they keep upping the amount of money until someone does. There will always be someone who jumps at this rather quickly, making it highly unlikely they will have to raise the offer much higher.
So what happened in your case?
First off, you were initially dealing with idiots. Either that, or they thought YOU were an idiot, and would simply back down and accept the circumstance without any sort of compensation. Or perhaps both.
Anyway, the last person you dealt with probably realized that they were violating US law and could not turn you away as a ticketed passenger. While they probably could have gotten someone to get off the plane for less than $1300, I'm guessing that the woman cut you the maximum amount they were willing to offer without some kind of further oversight, in order to both simplify the process and give you a little something extra for your trouble. This prevented them from having to go on the plane and get someone to volunteer, saving them time and effort. They also might have had a harder time getting someone off for cheap, as it was an international flight to a destination where few probably travel alone (thus making it harder for one person to agree to step off and wait until tomorrow).
In short, they did what they were required to do, but the woman was obviously nice and did you a favor by giving you what was likely as much as she could have.
You did very well here. If I were flying somewhere myself, I would love to have $1300 and a hotel room to wait until tomorrow, unless I had to be somewhere urgently.
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