I might be late to this but today I discovered that JetBlue never overbooks their flights?! Well, I guess you learn something everyday! I was looking at a flight from Boston to Los Angeles and this note on the seat map popped out to me:
Interesting! I did some more research on this and found out that this doesn’t mean you won’t get bumped.
JetBlue Never Overbooks? How can I still get bumped?!
Well, according to the Department of Transportation, JetBlue had high involuntary bump rate for the year of 2016 at 0.92 per 10,000 passengers which was the ninth highest out of the top 12 airlines in the United States.
However, in 2015 JetBlue had the lowest involuntary bump rate for the top 12 airlines in the United States at just 0.02 per 10,000 passengers.
Why the discrepancy?
There are many other reasons which can lead one to get bumped, specifically aircraft equipment changes. JetBlue has invested in new A321’s that can hold up to 200 passengers. If flights scheduled to have A321’s need to swap equipment to their older A320’s that can only hold 150 passengers, there’s a shortage of seats.
the Verdict:
As an economics major, It’s nice to see a profitable airline not have to oversell their flights in this day in age. Also it seems to make the customer seem more cared for. But of course, JetBlue still has other things to tweak (especially 2016’s bump rate?).
Did JetBlue ever bump you? Comment below!
Happy travels,
theresorttraveler
If you remember well, dr. Dao was not caused by an overbooked or aircraft changed. But they need the seat for aircrew that needed to be transported somewhere else. I’m not saying that a particular airline have an awful management of crew, but I think you knew better than me, since you are a travel blogger.
Seating aircrew’s are definitely another reason why passengers get bumped. Thanks for reading!