shoelu

Southwest Airlines will no longer overbook flights, CEO Gary Kelly said on CNBC on Thursday.

"I've made the decision, the company has made the decision, that we will cease to overbook going forward," Kelly said. "We've been taking steps over the last few years to prepare for this anyway."

Kelly didn't say when exactly the new policy will be put in place, but said "it's something that we will be discontinuing here very shortly." Southwest joins JetBlue in the commitment to end overbooking.

The practice of overbooking recently came under fire after United Airlines forcibly removed a passenger from a full flight to make room for crew members.

Southwest isn't the first airline to change its overbooking procedure following the outrage incited by the United incident.

Delta will now offer passengers up to $10,000 to give up their seats on overbooked flights.

United had first asked volunteers to give up their seats in exchange for $1,000, but when no one volunteered, the airline invoked its involuntary boarding policy and told four passengers they must leave.

Passenger David Dao, 69, was dragged off the flight when he refused to give up his seat, resulting in injuries to his face. United CEO Oscar Munoz has since apologized for the incident after issuing two poorly received statements. Dao is planning to sue the airline.

Southwest CEO says airline will no longer overbook flights - Business Insider

RJSAviator76

And Mr. Dao settled today...

Bootleg

yep---I'll bet he made out like a BANDIT!


Funny

Albief15

This is great news for commuters everywhere. No overbooking? Really? How many times NOW will there be a fully paid seat on every flight?

If the airlines really did this, the quality of life for both commuters and airline families will exponentially improve. Non-reving might really become an option on some city pairs.

Two years from now some guy in accounting is gonna tweak this back down. Better enjoy it while you can...

shoelu

I think it is a cost benefit analysis. Dr. Dao got a settlement today which we will never know the amount of due to nondisclosure agreements but I'm sure was not cheap! Delta has bumped its compensation up to $10,000 to accommodate involuntarily bumped passengers. The moral of the story is over the last several weeks it has gotten much more expensive re-accommodate revenue passengers not only in monetary terms but also in terms of customer relations and brand value. At least for the immediate future, overbooking is not worth the boost to the bottom line.

atpcliff

I was watching one of the financial channels during the UAL pax fiasco. The commentators said the settlement would be in the 7 figure range.

ZapBrannigan

GK said in the earnings call that even though there won't be "over booking" there will still be oversells due to downgrade of equipment, unscheduled crew movement etc. Although he also volunteered the Jumpseat for that


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tanker

While GK may have volunteered the jumpseat for moving crews both the Pilot and F/A contracts require a seat in the cabin for all deadheaders. The way GK has ruined the employee relationship that Herb had built up I don't see too many deadheaders volunteering for the jumpseat.

full of luv

Just allow each flight to be sold to the 800 capacity and deal with the equipment downgrades when they happen.

e6bpilot

This is purely numbers on a spreadsheet wrapped into a press bullet that sounds nice. GK doesn't do anything that will cost the company money. The marginal increase in revenue of overbooking is offset by the time, money, and anguish that is wrapped up in rebooking someone and getting volunteers. I would say it takes about an average of $500 and a half hour of a CSAs time to solicit volunteers. Multiply that times 150-200 times a day and that gets costly.