[ChrisH]

Originally Posted by PHXFlyer

And discriminatory. Basing the criteria on inverse check-in time does not take any factors which could be deemed discriminatory into account. Suppose a business person who needs to be at a critical meeting checks in 50 minutes early while a young mother traveling with a lap child barely makes the 45 minute cutoff time. Now the flight is over-sold and they tell the businessman that even though he checked in first and got the last seat assignment because he's flying solo and there's a mother with a lap child that he'll be the one left behind. Pardon the pun but that's just not gonna fly!

Also if the airlines did as you suggest where do they draw the line? Just how elderly or frail would someone need to be so that they aren't bumped? Which disabilities determine that someone must fly when there's an over-sold situation? Using the inverse check-in time makes the decision cut and dried.

Not to mention these flights, especially an international flight, often have 100-200+ passengers on the airplane, depending on the size of the airplane. How are the agents supposed to know who is traveling alone with a child, etc., to go single them out, and tell them you are on the oversold list, but because you have a child, we are letting you on. Then what are they supposed to do? Go pull some random person off of the airplane, who checked in hours ago, and tell them, "sorry, please get off of the airplane". There usually isn't time, when boarding flights, to go through processes like that. The computer spits out a name, of a person who is on the "oversold list", meaning they checked in last, or simply did not have a seat assignment, and they are the one to be bumped. Also, keep in mind that the agents have no control over these policies, and agents cannot decide to change the policies. So arguing this with the agent will solve nothing.

I have only once had to bump someone due to an over sale, and I felt horrible. They were upset, but not rude, and we made sure they were compensated. It was a family of three, and only one was on the over sale list. Not only did they get $800 cash, but we also paid for their tickets (all three of them, not just the one that was bumped), which were over $3,000 each. They were international. It cost a total of $10,000+ to bump this person, LOL, which made me wonder why the airline overbook and risk that, but again, as an agent, I cannot control it. My point being, the airlines try to take care of people in these situations, unfortunately you do have bad apples, but don't assume all airline employees are bad. We just have our hands tied in certain situations.