Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

Re:Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes by ewanm89 on Thursday April 27, 2017 @05:57PM (#14215104)

Well, there is more fuel left in the tank, so there is less on the refill so yes it does save fuel, not much but it does save some. I prefer no refunds for no-show policy myself, that is how it works when I buy a ticket to see a play. Now refundable upto 48 hours before the flight might be even fairer.

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Re:Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes by LeifCarrotson on Thursday April 27, 2017 @06:56PM (#14215536)

The fuel increase is marginal. You still have to burn fuel to carry that fuel to the next airport. And you have to carry the airframe with capacity for that empty seat. The 100 kg for a passenger+luggage is much less than the fractional weight of the plane required to carry them!

For some numbers, a 777-200 carries 313 passengers, weighs 135k kg, carries up to 100k kg of fuel, and has a max takeoff weight of about 250k kg. 313 passengers and luggage, averaging 100kg, weigh just 31.3k kg. Your ticket therefore pays for your weight, plus 5x your weight in airplane structure, plus (up to) 3x your weight in fuel.

If you don't show up, they're still carrying 8x your weight anyways, so saving 200kg isn't that important.

(PS: apologies for the 'thousands of kg' units. I thought it was more readable than Mg or fully written out numbers.)

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Re:Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes by nandemo on Thursday April 27, 2017 @09:11PM (#14216185)

> (PS: apologies for the 'thousands of kg' units. I thought it was more readable than Mg or fully written out numbers.)

Just write tonnes (= metric tons)?

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Re:Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes by linkregister on Thursday April 27, 2017 @09:07PM (#14216170)

thousands of kg is probably the most recognizable unit (besides pounds for those of us with archaic units)

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Re:Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes by knz on Thursday April 27, 2017 @06:37PM (#14215399)

> I prefer no refunds for no-show policy myself, that is how it works when I buy a ticket to see a play.

What about if you are flying long haul and linking up to a domestic flight on another airline? "Oh, we can't help you because your previous flight was delayed due to weather/mechanical/congestion.you should have flown on one carrier even if the price was 2x"?

Airport congestion is a big issue in the US, as is weather related delays.

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Re:Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes by ghaff on Thursday April 27, 2017 @07:17PM (#14215653)

There are absolutely circumstances where flights on different carriers end up on different itineraries. Sure, TS is one possible solution in the event of delays but so are processes that make dealing with delays out of the ongoing carrier's control more passenger friendly.

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Re:Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes by jfoutz on Thursday April 27, 2017 @06:54PM (#14215523)

Fuel is funny, because you keep some, but you're paying more by moving more mass. It's sorta like a special case of th rocket equation.

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