BGonline.org Forums

Overbooked Flights

Posted By: Bill Riles
Date: Wednesday, 25 March 2009, at 5:43 p.m.

Since many of us fly to tournaments all the time and flights are often overbooked -- and we were earlier talking about my experiences this weekend -- here is a link about the rules.

http://www.consumeraction.gov/caw_travel_problems_flights.shtml

An interesting fact therein is that if you have a reservation, check-in on time, etc. and you get bumped against your will then the airline has to compensate you up to $400 if they can't get you to your destination within one hour of the originally scheduled arrival (domestic flights, $800/4hrs on international flights) -- the $400 max is affected by price of ticket, etc. You can also demand a check rather than a voucher -- nice to know. Everything else is apparently negotiable.

I can't imagine an airline threatening to cancel a flight w/o volunteers as related by MCG. Had to be something else going on there.

And, of course, weather and/or mechanical delays mitigate the situation for the airlines. The 'mechanical' delay always seems like an easy out for them when they have several partially filled flights to a given city and they can consolidate them into one fewer full flights. Who's going to demand a 'mechanically' challenged plane be flown and how are you going to prove it otherwise?