1 reviews | Active since Dec 2015
Flight nightmare!!
My friends came from overseas, the one place they want to see is Cape Town. They were dumped by SAA who oversold seats. We quickly scrambled for British Airway tickets, and spent a small fortune to secure the earliest flight available, which was BA6409, departing 10:35. We stood in a long queue at B115-B127, waiting patiently to check in. After 40 minutes in the queue, around 10:00, we were three places from the counter, BA supervisor decides to open a dedicated queue for BA6409. We were told to join the back of that queue. I complained to no avail. When we eventually got to the counter, and boarding passes generated, we were told that the flight was over sold!! And we had to wait a few minutes to see if we can get seats. In the mean time, counters next to us were still checking in passengers for the same flight!! I am going to follow this up I promise you!
Thank you for your post .
Please extend our apologies to your friends for the service failure they experienced when they were unable to travel on their booked flight .
Overbooking is a common approach used by all airlines. The reason this is done is because we go according to previous years statistics on the no-show rate ( passengers who do no pitch for check-in despite being booked). We will then overbook the flight by this percentage of expected no-shows. In most cases this works and no problems are experienced.
However, on the rare occasions when there are more passengers arriving for check-in than expected they will be placed on standby until the flight is closed. At check-in closing time one of two things can happen. 1 - pre-booked seats that have not been taken up will be released and then passengers on standby will be allocated these. 2 - no seats are available and the passengers will be denied boarding and given alternative flights and compensation is offered.
Thank you for allowing me this opportunity of a response .
Kind regards
Fazila Khan
Customer Relations
Thank you for your post .
Please extend our apologies to your friends for the service failure they experienced when they were unable to travel on their booked flight .
Overbooking is a common approach used by all airlines. The reason this is done is because we go according to previous years statistics on the no-show rate ( passengers who do no pitch for check-in despite being booked). We will then overbook the flight by this percentage of expected no-shows. In most cases this works and no problems are experienced.
However, on the rare occasions when there are more passengers arriving for check-in than expected they will be placed on standby until the flight is closed. At check-in closing time one of two things can happen. 1 - pre-booked seats that have not been taken up will be released and then passengers on standby will be allocated these. 2 - no seats are available and the passengers will be denied boarding and given alternative flights and compensation is offered.
Thank you for allowing me this opportunity of a response .
Kind regards
Fazila Khan
Customer Relations