It’s been a windy weekend in the UK and Ireland and inevitably some flights were cancelled and delayed. Naturally I was travelling and after flying into London, I received a message that my return flight was cancelled. Who knew the new flight would turn out to be overbooked?
Overbooking happens at many airlines. Usually historical booking information is used to work out how many people don’t show show up for the flight. The services are then overbooked by that amount, so that when the flight leaves all the seats are taken.
Overbooked? This is Your Offer
Of course, throw humans into the mix and nothing is ever foolproof. While waiting at the gate at London City Airport, there were two announcements asking people to check their cabin baggage as the flight would be full.
This was followed by an announcement that the flight was also overbooked by four people. They asked for volunteers to accept travel from London Heathrow (on the other side of London) later that day.
Alas, nobody took up the offer and as I was in boarding group 1, I have no idea who the unlucky people were who were offloaded. For all I know, someone else didn’t turn up and everyone got on, but it was interesting and only the second time in all my years flying with BA that I’ve seen this.
Overall Thoughts
The British Airways compensation is exactly what the EU261 compensation rule demands, being £250.00. Offering additional to take a voucher is decent, and it is also better for the airline as real cash is not laid out. Of course, if you fly regularly with the airline, you’d certainly take that to put towards future flights, but sometimes cold hard electronic cash is better.
Have you ever been in an overbooking situation before? What were you offered and did you or anyone take it? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
Like planes? See my “Does anyone remember” series.
Flight reviews your thing? Mine are all indexed here.
Follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
