Randomly picked people on their computer
Will be whoever paid the least for their flights
Is that seriously how they work it? Budget boys get booted first? Makes sense from a business angle. You wouldn't want to boot a guy who had just paid top dollar 6 hours before the flight to fly last minute. Still incredibly harsh PR wise. Surely you just up the ante with bribes until someone bites to get off and avoid the bad PR? How often does this style of 'boot off' happen? Surely never happens otherwise it would be on SM all the time right?
Why don't they just operate a policy of the last 2 to check in get booted off? Would speed up the take off process if people knew this. Last minute check in types wouldn't be getting pissed so often in the bar if this was the policy.
I got so lucky in the mid 90's flying from Inverness to Heathrow with BA.
I was on a business trip, my company had paid the full fare and I needed to make the flight so was a tad concerned when I arrive at the check in desk (last to check in) and told the flight was full and was asked if I could wait for the next some 3 1/2 hours later with the compensation of a free ticket.
As I needed to fly the answer was a polite no with trepidation as it was the first time it had happened to me. The ground crew checked my ticket and then began discussing who they could take off such as lower paid fares or as it happened one of the airport service crew who had a freebie and was waiting to board but chatting to his friends at the desk.
A few years earlier a friend had been in a similar situation and was offered the 'dickie seat' behind the pilot on a flight from Manchester to Heathrow.
So I rather optimistically asked if I could fly down in the 'dickie seat' and save them shoving someone else off, although I felt if this happened they would surely give it to the airport service guy.
However, they had a chat spoke to the Captain and after what was a brief description of myself and circumstances they offered me the dickie seat and I snapped it up, obviously nothing like this would happen nowadays.
The next 2 hours or so was an experience I will never forget from turning left at the cabin door at Inverness and soaring off over the Moray Firth to landing at Heathrow with the 1st officer landing fully manually (seemingly the craft a 737 could land virtually on auto or so I seemed to recollect him telling me) and in a way it was just like a computer flying game.
Most of the flight was in the clouds and apart from regular checks it seemed very non-descript with both pilots saying they preferred flights less than 4 hours duration and we chatted mostly about golf as I felt a tad awkward asking tekky questions.
Anyway, that wasnt my only experience of being bumped off and after one event which caused me to miss a direct flight from Heathrow to Inverness I was assisted by the check in crew to get a flight from Heathrow/Glasgow/Inverness which I received compensation for and only delayed by about an hour and half.
So Im a bit confused as to how this airline got it so wrong as its a common experience.
Author