Ronkonkoma, New York-based Luxury Aircraft
Solutions, Inc. has announced that they will continue to provide last-minute
plane charters for flight crew when commercial flights are overbooked, which can
allow all paying passengers to continue with their original travel plans
uninterrupted.
While the charter plane company primarily
provides private jet charters for independent business and leisure travelers,
they also frequently work with major commercial airlines when it comes to
getting their flight crew to where they need to be—on time, and without
disrupting the travel plans of their paying customers.
“Overbooking of commercial flights happens
quite frequently, actually, and sometimes this means that flight crew are unable
to get to a specific destination when they need to,” said
Daniel Hirschhorn,
Managing Director of Luxury Aircraft Solutions. “In this situation, passengers
may be offered to give up their seats in exchange for free travel in the future,
or some other form of compensation. But more and more airlines are seeing the
value in providing their flight crew with other options, such as chartering a
plane for them. That’s when they turn to us. It can cost the same - or less -
than to compensate passengers, nobody’s travel plans are ruined, and they avoid
bad press. Everybody wins.”
It may be surprising that a passenger might be
turned away or bumped off a flight due to overbooking. After all, only a certain
number of seats are available on an airplane, and thus, only a certain number of
seats are sold. Although this may appear to be how commercial airlines operate,
it is actually not the case, and the majority of commercial flights are oversold
intentionally. To determine how much a particular flight should be oversold,
airlines will use a formula called the No Show Rate, which calculates past data
as a way of predicting how may confirmed passengers won’t show up for a booked
flight.
However, the No Show Rate is merely a
prediction, and many times, not an accurate one. When the estimated number of
no-show passengers turns out to be incorrect, the plane can be overbooked. As a
result, some passengers may be denied boarding, or may be asked to deplane prior
to the flight taking off. For some travelers, this might be a minor
inconvenience, and they may gladly accept a later flight if the compensation is
fair. For others, they may not have a choice, and it could ruin their travel
plans completely. Getting bumped off a flight could cause them to miss a
connecting flight or a very important event, and it can be impossible to get
that time back.
Luxury Aircraft
Solutions is hoping to shed light on the importance
of providing flight crew with other options after a
recent United Airlines incident made headlines.
During
the boarding process of overbooked
Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville
on April 9th, 2017, passengers were
offered to voluntarily give up their
seats in order to make room for flight
crew.
When nobody willingly volunteered, 69-year-old Dr. David Dao was chosen at random. Dao, failing to comply because he had to return to work the next day,
was then forcefully removed. He suffered a number of injuries, including a
fractured nose, two lost front teeth, and a concussion. |
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Shocking images of Dr. David Dao's plight
reverberated around the world. |
The outcome of the incident has created quite
a buzz across the media, as several photos and video clips show Dao’s brutal
mistreatment. Although the airline has attempted to resolve the incident by
making changes to their overbooking policies and offering refunds to all
passengers of Flight 3411, it has resulted in a significant amount of fallout
for the airline. By taking advantage of services offered by private jet charter
flight brokers, major airlines in the future could potentially avoid this type
of aftermath.
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