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Comment by thrwn_frthr_awy | Hacker News Reader

This just happened to my family. We booked a non-stop flight on Alaska Airlines from Southern California to Maui only to have it canceled a couple weeks later. They rebooked us from so cal -> Seattle -> Oahu -> Maui, but with young kids this just isn't a realistic option for us. If they wouldn't have offered the flight in the first place we could have looked for a different airline or even a different destination. Now we are doing all that last minute. It is frustrating that they rebooked our flight to save them money at the cost of our time, without reducing our fare at all. It felt very one sided and like a bait-and-switch. We also asked if we could change our dates to a non-stop flight in November or later, but they said we would need to pay the fare difference. Super frustrating, but it seems like airlines just kinda get to do whatever they want.

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Are they doing this intentionally to bait-and-switch people?

I do think they are intentionally booking flights that have no to low chances of flying. Currently there is no downside for them – either the flights eventually book enough people to make enough money for the airline to run the flight or they simply cancel them and put you on a much worse itinerary.

Maybe if a flight actually fills up to a certain point (75%?) they'll schedule it. Sort of an on-demand model.

Sure, but they should be upfront with that when booking. Fwiw the plane seemed fairly full when picking seats, especially when taking into account the blocked out the middle seats.

I don't think those seat pickers cannot be trusted for this information. I had one American Airlines flight that showed so full that I had to pay for seats so that my wife and I could sit together. When we got on the plane, it was clearly under capacity and there were plenty of seats together. I complained to the flight attendant a bit just to vent, and later I saw a refund for the up charge. I assume it was due to my complaint, but who knows maybe they have some sort of process that automatically refunds them on under capacity trips.

I used to catch a Delta flight back and forth from sjc to sea, that was consistently about half full.

I would always wait until everyone boarded, then move up to comfort plus or whatever it was called. On my last flight the attendant told me to move back since it wasn't fair for the suckers, no offense, that paid for it.

I offered to pay a nominal amount for the seat. The attendant pulled up the little register stick and said it would be $75. I said no thanks and moved back to my empty row about 3 rows back.

I guess some airlines do it differently.

And free money at a time when they're undoubtedly having cashflow problems.

But it might not be the best overall strategy when they are simultaneously begging for another government bailout.

You are talking about the industry that routinely overbooks flights.

Credit card chargeback is the answer

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