DryMotorBoatin

I dont understand the Wings website. I can look at a flight and there will be 70+ seats available at...say noon the day before. Four hours later I can look at it and there will be 68 seats available. By 10pm it will be oversold. Now I realize there will be rebookings from weather the day before or other cancellations but just about everytime I try to non rev on airways, it will go from wide open, 70+ on a 321 to oversold within a matter of the last couple hours before the flight. What gives?

justjack

I can't explain it but it happens. Once when going on a vacation with the fam, wide open to CDG. Overbooked, literally on the drive into the airport. We went to GLA instead. We were very chilly the entire trip as we had packed for much warmer climate.

VenetianFryCook

Not always, but often. Commuted home the other day on a flight ... when I listed 4 days in advance it had 160 open seats, and when it actually flew it had 120. (Still a 40 seat swing! Why I ALWAYS list for the JS as well.)

Weather or delay-related rebookings are far and away the largest culprit. Since we have a whole department devoted to this, they're good at finding flights with open seats on them to get customers moving ASAP during disruptions.

For the record, I've had similar things happen to me on other carriers as well. This is not an issue restricted to US by any stretch.

hazrd

I've had them over sell that quickly, and according to agents in LAS, sometimes those flights then go out empty.

Another factor is PHX sells tickets for dirt in the paper the day before for some flights, and supposedly also to 'resell' agencies, though I do not know how that works.

Also have seen downsized aircraft if it makes 'sense' happen in BWI and LAX.

VenetianFryCook

One of the advantages of being the world's largest A320-family operator is that they can "right-size" a flight by upgauging or downgauging when necessary on short notice ... the only change to the crew necessary is a fourth FA if on a 321. This sometimes happens due to load, but more often seems to be due to maintenance. If a 320 is down for maintenance, they can sub a 319 and **** off 26 people instead of cancelling and ****ing off 150. (This can also happen in an upsize ... I've seen a 319 replaced by a 321. 59 more seats for nonrevs!)

Leonardo

Can anyone clarify for me the "Imputted value" that wings displays for designated travel companions? I understand that this is somehow representative of the value of the flight, but sometimes it seems WAY OFF. For example, I was checking on a flight from Nashville to Rome which included a connection through Philly. The value of the international leg was $260 while the domestic leg was almost $800!! That didn't seem to make much sense. I saw a memo or note somewhere that they were having problems with Wings correctly calculating the Imputted values...is this a symptom of that or are such screwy numbers normal?

Also, I'm a little confused on how much we pay for these "tickets." The travel guide says 10% one place and 35% another. ?? The AA NRTP page doesn't display any kind of value so how does one know how much will be deducted for those flights??

Thanks

inline five

It's essentially added income to your paycheck for which you then pay taxes on.

So if the value was $500 and you made $5000 for that check, you would get taxed on $5500 not $5000. If you live in a state with a 5% income tax rate, and are in the 30% tax bracket, you'd pay about $175 for that ticket, essentially, in taxes.

inline five

Going at the end of the day is bad because all the misconnects and oversolds from the early part of the day roll over. Also I have seen 60+ seats evaporate over 3 different flights in the span of <2 hours, happens a ton in the islands. I don't know who is buying these last minute tickets but a lot of people do.

When I non-rev, it sucks, but I tend to take the o'dark thirty flight in the AM to the hub and cross my fingers on my connection from there. I also look at various hubs and routings, example, you want to go PHL-CLT you can go PHL-RIC-CLT or PHL-GSO-CLT sometimes. Hub to hub is hit or miss, some are wide open but most are overbooked. And if you are non-revving don't plan on the jumpseat because they are booked in advance 9/10 times.

Also in the summer, try to go early and if you can't, in the afternoon with thunderstorms there tend to be a lot of misconnects. Suddenly oversold flights leave with 10 open seats, etc. Take mainline especially with bad weather because they tend to wack the commuter schedules but let mainline run pretty much on time.

Thedude

Yup, early morning flights are they way to go if you want to non-rev.
I hate getting up early too.

Even the red-eyes have been full lately.

viper548

There are a lot of very tight connections and thus a lot of Mis connects getting rolled over to later flights. Maybe it's just the city pairs I'm going on but going home this week I had a 24 minute connection in PHX and today going to work I have a 30 min connection.