Overbooking under scrutiny

Despite United Airlines’ latest misfortune over Flight 3411, the latest denied boarding rankings by the US Department of Transportation show the carrier is not the worst for bumping passengers.

As commentators have noted, United just had the misfortune of having a video taken of a passenger being dragged from one of its aircraft after he refused to leave when he was selected for forced bumping from an overbooked flight.

The DoT report shows other airlines also have a history of removing passengers against their wishes, and the US Federal Aviation Administration recently fined four major carriers that failed to tell passengers about how much compensation they are entitled to when they are removed.

United was among them, along with American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and Alaska Airlines.

The new DoT document examines the numbers of airline passengers who faced involuntary denied boarding between October and December last year, ranging from No. 12 (the best, or lowest rate of denied boarding) to No. 1 (the worst, or highest rate).

In descending order, the carriers named are Hawaiian at No. 12, then Virgin America, Delta, Spirit, Alaska, United, Frontier, American, Southwest, Skywest, JetBlue and ExpressJet at No.1.

www.bts.gov

Index/Home page
 

OUR READERS' FINEST WORDS (All times and dates are GMT)

All comments are filtered to exclude any excesses but the Editor does not have to agree with what is being said. 100 words maximum

---

Norman Bartlett, UK

Can anyone explain why bidding for passengers to be bumped is capped at $800? Surely if there were no cap, some pax would take the dosh if it went high enough. I suppose airlines are too mean.

---