Easyjet overbooking/off loading passenagers

catieeb06

Once on a 2 week holiday to Cuba we were approached by a Thomas Cook Rep who said that they had had to hire in a smaller plane due to technical issues with the one we were meant to be on.

We were offered £400 each to offload, a night in the Radisson SAS in Manchester Airport, lunch, dinner and breakfast the next day, priority boarding (so we got extra legroom free) and a transfer to the hotel free.

All for boarding 24 hours later, no biggie as it was 2 week holiday so didn't feel like we lost time.

Whole holiday cost £600 each as it was a last minute booking so when you add up all the perks including the compensation, well really it cost nothing!

exel1966

tower wrote: »

We have just returned from our holiday in lanzarote, and wanted to share an incident we witnessed on our departure from gatwick with Easyjet.
We had all(passenagers) checked in and been called to the boarding gate, had our tickets checked and waited to board the plane. Just as they announced speedy boarding, a family of five were called back to the boarding gate desk and informed they have been off loaded as the flight was overbooked. They were offered flights two days later.
I think this is a terrible way to treat people, but it got me wondering what their rights would be. After all they had paid to get to the airport (parking,hotel)and would now have to return and Lost two days of the holiday.

I don't believe this would have happened as your portraying. EZY do not overbook as is common with full service scheduled airlines. Even an aircraft change from A319 to A320/1 would not result in just 5 seats difference. There may have been a safety reason to off load, but that would be done in accordance with regulations by establishing volunteers. A family would NEVER be involuntarily offloaded without seeking volunteers nor without adequate agreed compensation.
Think you've only picked up on a small portion of the story rather than all the facts.

I've voluntarily offloaded myself from flights on numerous occasions when not having to stick to a tight schedule. It can be quite lucrative to the pax if you do it with the right airlines

peachyprice

We voluntarily offloaded from a BA flight to Orlando, still flew at the same time but it was a connecting flight to Dallas, added another 3 hours to our journey and £1k to our spending money (5 x £200) Oh happy days.

The most disgusting case of offloading I've ever seen was in Crete. It was the last BA flight off of the island for the season, they didn't ask for volunteers, names were chosen from the list. The pax were left overnight in the airport, had to fly to Turkey at 7am the next day, then back to Athens, then from Athens to London 2 days later. They offloaded 8 passengers, when we boarded there were 6 seats available in Club Europe.

smcaul

I think the practice of over booking should be banned, all the seats are paid for anyway, so this is just a way of the airlines making additional revenue out of each flight!! No other industry gets away with it, you don't turn up at the theatre with tickets and then they say "sorry no seat, we over booked", you don't get it on cruises!!! Seems only airlines get away with it!!

I have only ever been offloaded once, that was on a flight from Memphis to LHR via Chicago, American Airlines were looking for volunteers, I made a deal with them, would catch a flight that got me in 8 hours later to lhr (which saved me having to get a hotel for the night in London) if they upgraded me to business class all the way - they bit my hand off best long haul flight I ever had So if you do get bumped, dont always take cash, sometimes there are better ways of making the deal

Andy_L

smcaul wrote: »

I think the practice of over booking should be banned, all the seats are paid for anyway, so this is just a way of the airlines making additional revenue out of each flight!!

In which case you will have to pay more for your seat, especially if the gov move to the plan of taxing flights by the aircraft rather than per passenger as an empty seat will have a "double whammy" of costs

smcaul

Andy_L wrote: »

In which case you will have to pay more for your seat, especially if the gov move to the plan of taxing flights by the aircraft rather than per passenger as an empty seat will have a "double whammy" of costs

I beg to differ, seat prices have continued to fall due to competition, that won't change when you have the likes of Easyjet, Ryanair and to a lesser extent Virgin. How much do they overbook by, maybe 5 or 10% at most, so take for instance a 737 from LGW to Paris, 162 passangers paying £327.50 (not including the £95.80 taxes), if they did not overbook at all but normally over booked by 5% then each of the 162 seats would pay £16.17 extra each, obviously if they normally over book by 10% then that becomes £32.34 each.

Not really much on the whole price of the ticket, that is assuming the market would stand that sort of increase, which i am not sure it would!! Obviously on a much cheaper route the difference would be very minor.

The airlines do it because they can get away with it, that is all!!!

Dr.Rock

SandC wrote: »

Also, I've tried to cancel a flight with one of the no frills airlines in the past, I forget which one of the two main ones it might have been. I was told on the phone not to bother, just don't turn up they said. Even though I knew I wasn't entitled to a refund I still considered it courteous to call but seems that was a waste of time. At least with the major airlines a cancellation will be logged.

This isn't strictly true. You are entitled to a refund of the air passenger duty (and airport tax and VAT if they then resell the seat) you paid if you aren't going to be flying which is why most airlines have a considerable "administration charge" for cancellations to put you off doing this so they can pocket the money.

JasonLVC

smcaul wrote: »

No other industry gets away with it, you don't turn up at the theatre with tickets and then they say "sorry no seat, we over booked", you don't get it on cruises!!! Seems only airlines get away with it!!

Hotels are increasingly getting good at 'losing your booking" and they have double booked for a while now. They operate exactly like the airlines. You pay for a room and most hotels don't refund if you don't shop up and then they just re-sell the same room to someone else.

I've turned up at hotels who've claimed "no record" of booking and then like to watch them backtrack when you show them your print off/visa receipt....then they either find a room or as has happened before, they book you into a nearby hotel at no extra cost.