What do you think of the show Airline

[SWAdude]

I always thought that was a stupid policy to oversell airplanes. I mean tickets are non-refundable anyway! Even if a passenger no-shows, you still make the money from his ticket.

Oh boy...did you show your ignorance!!

Many reservations are made without payment being made until the pax shows up.

Neither would the SWA Gate manager if the camera wasn't there!

I've seen this ops agent in action. He is equally as extrordinary as the show displayed. If not more.

We do have many just like him.

SWAdude

 

[SWAInflt]

Huh, thats interesting. I always thought that was a stupid policy to oversell airplanes. I mean tickets are non-refundable anyway! Even if a passenger no-shows, you still make the money from his ticket.

Revenue Management is the force behind overbooking. If indeed an entire flight were sold as advance purchase, non-refundable tickets it would be unnecessary to overbook the flight as these tickets have a very low no-show factor. However, most flights are comprised of a mix of advance purchase and full-coach, walk up, refundable tickets. The Revenue management system closely monitors the 'mix' of seats and makes the necessary adjustments in the 'lid' that the flight can be booked to in an attempt to make sure the flight pushes off the gate full. Our 733 and 73G seat 137, if the majority of the flight is comprised of full coach tickets the system may raise the lid to as high as 160 to 170. In many cases people holding full coach tickets will double or triple book on multiple flights in case they get out of a meeting early and don't want to risk standby. Normally, the system works, the planes go out full and everybody is happy. However, the system can very easily be thrown out of whack. If a flight on a certain route cancels the first thing people do is run to a payphone or pull out their cell phones and make a reservation on a later flight. Since the lid was set on the later flight before the earlier flight cancelled, the system did not anticipate the extra last minute passengers and you are now looking at a viscious oversell. Normally Dallas will zero out flights that might be affected before the cancellation is announced by sometimes they forget or don't move quickly enough. Equipment downgrades can also result in oversells. If you were expecting a 733 and a 735 shows up...you are suddenly short 15 seats.

 

[Big Duke Six]

Canyonblue -

I'm right there with you as far as irresponsible people go. You do have to question the judgement of the well-educated couple who booked the last flight out on their way to a $5000 vacation. Or the woman who booked a just-in-time flight on her way to a conference she was supposed to be speaking at.

I think the problem is that people are ignorant of the potential problems. They ASSUME that if they buy a ticket on a given flight, that there will be a seat for them on that flight. The airlines have become so efficient that the average passenger has no concern for Wx or MX issues. Thanks to Jetblue320 for setting me straight on JB's oversell policy - I did not know that you guys don't oversell. Are your tickets nonrefundable, or if you miss a flight are they good on a future flight? Every airline and every ticket has different rules, which may contribute to some of the confusion on the part of the passengers. It's a Catch-22 for the airlines - they want to accomodate the pax with changing plans but suffer when the airplanes go out half empty.

Overselling may be a necessary evil, but that doesn't really cut it if you're the one getting bumped. In the passengers mind, the fact that they bought a ticket is a contract. I guess it isn't, but I still think, overall, the show will backfire on SWA. Again, every airline deals with these same issues - I just don't think it is good PR to put them on national TV. And yes they have had some fine examples of great CSA's, but their good work, in my mind, gets overshadowed by the negatives the show brings to light.

 

[SWAInflt]

IMHO the impact on the company will be neglible at best in either direction. My sense is that the only people who are really paying any attention to this show are those who are already within the aviation community. I don't have specific ratings numbers for 'Airline' however, I do know that A&E averages an audience of around 1 million +/- in primetime. Compared to the Big 3 networks and even the rest of basic cable, those are pretty anemic numbers. Among the laymen of the traveling public who are watching 'Airline' .... SWA customers and potential customers tend to fall into 3 basic categories: ALWAYS, NEVER, and MAYBE. The "Always" group are generally the frequent fliers who have been SWA devotees for years or those who find that how we operate fits their personalities and lifestyles. Those people watched the show and saw everything they love about us reinforced. Then there are the "Nevers". These folks would rather walk than take an SWA flight. Maybe they hate open seating or singing flight attendants or they had a negative experience and have simply sworn us off. Again, they watched the show with their own agendas and saw everything they hate about Southwest live and in color. The interesting thing is that the "Always" group and the "Never" group watched the exact same show...they just saw completely different things. Finally, you have the "Maybe" group. These folks have either flown us and were neither impressed, nor repulsed or they have never flown us but they have heard things. Just like the "Always" group and "Never" group...some will watch the show and see caring agents go above and beyond and inflight crews that try to make flying fun and others will see "lower-class" passengers, and "unprofessional" frontline employees. In other words some of the"Maybes" who see the show will at least give SWA a shot and potenially become "Always" passengers and others will simply migrate to the "Never" side of the argument. When all is said and done I believe it will have little impact one way or the other. I guess we will have to wait until the other 12 episodes have aired before we know for sure.

 

[na265]

Cannyonblue and SWAInflt you hit it exactly. As a former FA at SWA, I have seen this type of pax behavior first hand. It could be frustrating at times. One thing to keep in mind is that this is a very small percentage of the people who were flying SWA that day. You know the saying about some of the people some of the time. As far as the CSM in LAX, I think he would have done the same thing without the cameras in his face. SWA is very selective in the people they hire, and he fits the type SWA wants.

The piece about the Capt who has retiring was very cool. I saw some pilots and FAs I had worked with.

 

[Snoopy58]

BigDuke,

In the passengers mind, the fact that they bought a ticket is a contract.

Yep, and the fine print of the contract at any airline that does oversell seats will say something to the effect that "we do oversell, and in the event that we have to deny you boarding (after asking for volunteers), then ..." It's part of the contract; as always, reading the fine print is necessary to understand what happens when things don't go as planned.

Unlike many airlines, at SWA, if you miss your flight, your ticket still has its full value for use later, with no "$50 change fee" or any such nonsense. If you paid $X for your ticket & you don't use it, it's still worth every penny of what you paid for it. Now, if it was a restricted fare ticket & you want to travel on a different flight that only has full-fare seats available (probably all that's left on the day of the flight), you WILL have to pay the difference to upgrade to the full fare ticket (another difference between SWA & other airlines)... but the dollar value of the original ticket doesn't diminish.

Which makes it essentially painless for a passenger to buy more tickets for a given day than he will use, since there's no penalty for using the $ value later. One reason why SWA overbooks some flights quite a bit -- and must if they're to avoid a "sold out" flight departing half empty!

 

[ponder]

They'll be Back....

I love the passengers that exclaim they'll never fly Southwest again.... Yeah right.....

At worst case, walk-up fare, here - all the way to East Bugtussle...... maximum fare is $299.00 bucks......... Try walking up to American's or Useless Air's front ticket counter on the spur of the moment and asking for that fare. The gate agent will laugh so hard they'll puke their lunch milk out their nose.

Regarding Ms. Hunter who mistakenly booked her flight on the wrong day, Southwest Airlines not only got her on a flight, it was at the same price. The other airlines would circle like vultures.