When passengers are dropped from overbooked flights, the practice in Singapore is to compensate them. The airline told The Straits Times that these include travel vouchers, meals or hotel accommodation, in addition to the choice to take an alternate flight to your destination.
There have been no overbooking complaints since January last yr, said a spokesman for the Consumers Association of Singapore. Terence Fan, a transport specialist on the Singapore Management University, said: “Customers who get hit are usually well served and well compensated here. The staff may say that they can, for example, upgrade your ticket to business class or first class for the next flight.”
The issue of what airlines should do when flights are overbooked is now a subject of debate after a United Airlines passenger was dragged from an overcrowded plane on Sunday. Aviation analyst Shukor Yusof of Endau Analytics said overbooking is just not illegal, but United handled the situation poorly: “There are many other ways to persuade passengers to not fly aside from brute force.”
A Jetstar spokesman said: “Airlines on this a part of the world take a way more conservative approach to overbooking than airlines within the United States.”
In Singapore, he said that as an alternative of forcing the passenger to deplane after boarding, the passenger can be disembarked and placed on an alternate flight on the check-in counter. Singapore Airlines “fastidiously manages these passengers,” a spokesman said. “We are usually able to provide accommodation or alternative arrangements for our customers who have a confirmed booking.”
Airlines are inclined to overbook because almost every flight has a small percentage of passengers who no-show on the airport, said a Scoot and Tigerair spokesman. Affected passengers can receive a full money refund in the event that they prefer to make their very own arrangements, he added.
The airlines didn’t reply to questions on how often they must reschedule customers and the way they resolve who has to provide up their seats. Professor Fan said the practice is mandatory because airlines operate on razor-thin margins. “This allows airlines to compensate other passengers for no-shows. “These passengers may pay a cancellation fee, but this will not fully recover the cost of having empty seats on the plane,” he said. –
This article was first published in The Straits Time on April 12, 2017.
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For more information, please visit: http://news.asiaone.com/news/singapore/spore-airlines-offer-travel-vouchers-upgrades-and-more#sthash.ofmXA2X3.dpuf
– For more information, please visit: http://news.asiaone.com/news/singapore/spore-airlines-offer-travel-vouchers-upgrades-and-more#sthash.ofmXA2X3.dpuf
