Overbooking, rain of money on Boston-Rome: offered nearly $50,000 to the 13 volunteers who chose to take the later flight
The video has already garnered a whopping 350 thousand views since it was posted on TikTok last [...]
Delta
SkyTeam
FCO
The video has already garnered a whopping 350 thousand views since it was posted on TikTok last Sept. 18. Show a flight attendant who, microphone in hand in the Economy cabin, acts like the auctioneer at an auction.
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The images were filmed (in all likelihood around mid-September) on board an American Delta Airlines plane shortly before departure from Boston bound for Rome Fiumicino. At one point the stewardess is distinctly heard 'offering' the sum of $3,500 and two passengers can be seen getting up and running toward her, who says "they go to the first person who comes along."
The news of what happened that night at Logan Airport has been picked up in recent hours by several American news sites, which explain how as many as 13 passengers on that Boston-Rome flight agreed to disembark, getting between $2,000 and $4,000 each in return. Some, in anticipation of their postponed departure to the next day, would also receive from the American company a voucher for a free night at one of the hotels near the New England stopover.
Why the auction?
Reason for the auction? Overbooking, i.e., the sale, in this case by Delta Airlines, of more tickets than seats actually available on a flight. A phenomenon that the New York newspaper's New York Post website describes as "a disreputable but common practice on flights operated in the U.S., because the carrier's contract of carriage explicitly explains that the company 'reserves the right to sell more travel tickets on each flight than there are seats actually available on the aircraft operating it.'"
For example, in its contract of carriage Delta explains that: "Before denying boarding to passengers holding a confirmed reservation on an overbooked flight, Delta will ask other passengers on that same flight to voluntarily surrender their seats in exchange for compensation, the amount and form of which Delta will determine at its sole discretion."
In July 2022, also writes the NYPost, to passengers on an overbooked flight between Grand Rapids in Michigan and Minneapolis, Delta had gone so far as to offer as much as $10,000 for them to land Making way for others.
But there are so many stories of overbooking that we have told here at TFC, it even happened once at the Bum to be in the queue at the gate in one of these cases. the most striking case was what happened to a "lucky" American passenger who put thousands and thousands of dollars in his pocket for 3 days in a row.
Why does this not happen in Italy and Europe
This practice also occurs in Europe, a couple of Italian celebrities who have been affected by this phenomenon have made headlines this summer, for example, it fell to Claudio Cecchetto, but auctions are not the norm on this side of the ocean. The reason is that in Europe the law protecting consumers sets refunds maximums that companies must recognize to passengers in case of delays, cancellations and denied boarding.
The difference is just that. In the U.S. there is no such thing (and carriers would like it), so companies to avoid lawsuits act in this direction. Conversely, passengers are not protected in case of delays as they are in Europe. In contrast, European low-cost carriers would like to cancel/amend the regulations deemed too onerous.
