Thread by @patio11

Overheard at airport, at an overbooked flight.

Man #1: “I’d give up a seat for $500.”
#2: “$500?!? I’d do it for le...”
#1: “Bro do you see anyone else up here. They need two seats. (To agent) He will do it for $500.”

I like this guy.

I would have liked him even more if he had Googled the maximum amount the gate agent can authorize without needing to call a supervisor, but at least he anchored relatively high.

Oh there might be folks who don’t know what is happening here.

Airlines typically overbook flights, selling more seats than physically exist such that the flight flies full even when some folks miss it. Sometimes more people show up than can physically board.

Then this happens:

1) The airline asks for volunteers for folks who will board a later flight, in return for “compensation of the airline’s choosing.”

2) If they can’t get all the seats they need from #1, they have to involuntarily deny boarding. This is regulated: transportation.gov/individuals/av…

Business practices for #1 differ, but at the airlines I use, the usual mechanism is to conduct a reverse auction at the gate: offering (depends on airline) a voucher for future travel or a generally-useful gift card at lowest prices required to induce volunteers.

Because the damage to an airline from a delay is far greater than the prices typically discussed here, the gate agent generally has discretionary authority up to $X, for a higher X than most people would believe they can negotiate in two sentences.

At the risk of stating the obvious: gate agents don’t give a fig what the company spends to buy those last N seats back. It isn’t their money. This is an edge case and they are not compensated on cost control.

Also stating obvious: of course there is a spreadsheet here.