Bumped Off

The last thing I expected to hear at the airline check-in counter
was 'sorry, your seat allocation on this flight has gone'. Hang on a
minute, I thought, how so? I mean, the flight was booked and paid for
eight months ago and I'd reserved our actual seat allocation six weeks
prior, yet here I was listening to this guy nonchalantly tell me that
that our seats had gone. One half of my brain said 'stay calm, relax,
there's been a mistake, the other was screaming 'throw a fit, shout,
scream, grab the supercilious twat by his airline tie, drag him over
the counter and beat the crap out of him'. I realised, of course, that
no amount of remonstrating would alter the fact that we had encountered
the same problem that 100,000 British travellers experience every year:
Overselling. We had been 'bumped-off' the flight and nothing I could
say or do would change that fact that we wouldn't be flying to Vienna
in time to make our connecting flight to Sydney. Never mind eh? only 6
months planning and several thousand pounds down the pan; the holiday
of a life time scuppered before it got off the ground, literally.

In order to maximise their profits, airlines will deliberately sell
more tickets for certain flights than there are seats on the aircraft
in the hope that enough customers will fail to turn up and check-in on
the day. Often they get it right, sometimes they don't and travellers
are denied boarding, even though they have valid tickets which they've
spent their hard-earned cash on. And it's all legal. I couldn't believe
it. Imagine turning up at a theatre to find some guy and his wife
sitting in your dress-circle seats. It just doesn't happen, right? I
know train companies will sell tickets to their hearts content and
we're used to having to stand for three hours whilst the Virgin train
struggles North along crumbling tracks. But the CAA obviously wouldn't
be too happy if one of Richard's flights made its descent into Heathrow
with those hundred or so passenger's with no seats to buckle themselves
into, hanging on to the overhead lockers. Instead the check-in staff
shake their heads, shrug, give lip service to an apology and direct you
to the relevant airline desk where you'll either get your money back or
tickets for a replacement flight. In our case we were offered a flight
to Tokyo later in the day, a connecting flight twelve hours later to
Sydney and the information that we were lucky we wouldn't be stuck in
Heathrow for a day or two, as sometimes happens. They did chuck in
enough vouchers for us to buy a few Moccachino's and drinks for the
kids whilst we waited. And, in all fairness, the airline did arrange
day rooms in the wonderful ANA hotel in Narita so that we could sleep.
They also told us that we were entitled to compensation under EC law,
which went some way to make up for the fact that we eventually arrived
in Sydney tired, emotional and a little bit smelly, thirty-odd hours
later than expected.

On returning to England after actually having had the holiday of a
lifetime, we discovered that: a) it had been hotter here that in Oz, b)
all our plants and the lawn had died, c) Blair was still PM and d) the
amount of compensation we'd told we were due was EUR150 per person too
much. Not much use that, seeing as we'd spent the amount we thought we
were due on two extra days down under. Doesn't take long for the post
holiday blues to kick-in, does it?

You'll no doubt notice that I've chosen to omit the name of the airline
involved. That's because they haven't heard the last of me. I want my
EUR750 and if I have to take things further to get it, I will, but I
wouldn't want this article to spoil my chances. Seeing that the
European Parliament is currently voting on a 100\% increase in the
amount of compensation due for denied boarding, I might get a little
help along the way. Such an increase would force most of the airlines
to think carefully about their overselling policies so you can expect
the price of flights to rocket as they try to retain their profits.
Don't say you haven't been warned.