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A BA check-in agent writes about how they select passengers for downgrading and offloading

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Regular readers of Head for Points will know that there has been substantial discussion on the site in recent weeks about downgrades.  In particular, the issue is whether British Airways is prioritising Avios tickets, and 241 tickets in particular, because it does not have to pay the legally required EU261 compensation in cash, if at all.

Unfortunately for BA, a regular contributor to HfP was recently downgraded on a 241 ticket.  This means that we will be following his claim for full compensation in real time.

British Airways BA 777X 777 9X

To put the other side of the story, I asked a British Airways check-in agent if they could tell me how the downgrade and offloading system is meant to work.  This is what they said – I have edited the comments to remove any identifying details:

We will be told which flights are oversold at our briefing when we start work that day. Depending on how oversold it is a nominee may be appointed to approach all customers for that destination before they get to the desk, ie. when they enter the queue.   They are given details of the compensation offered by us on the day and the alternative flight we can offer them, together with any info on hotels and transportation to those hotels.  Sometimes we have to re-route via another airport so will send them to overnight up there in readiness.

If the flight is just one or two oversold we will be asked to approach customers as they check in or drop bags. The information of the offer is shown in the header page for that flight together with ‘bail out’ options (as we call it). In fairness some of the newer staff can be scared of asking as any hint of overbooking may worry a customer so being new some of them tend not to ask.

If someone volunteers to come off for cash they are told that they will still travel on the flight if space is available at closure. They will then be on-loaded at that time but in whatever seat is left. So sometimes not the best of options.

If we have no volunteers and all seats have been assigned then the last person to present themselves at check in will be told that unfortunately at this time there is no seat for them and they will be asked to return at flight closure. It’s only at that time will we know if they can get on or not.  If they don’t get on we deal with the initial conversations (never a nice thing to do) and advise the compensation they will receive, etc. A manager will come down and issue the cash card, and we issue vouchers for hotel, meals, etc.

Downgrades can, and do, happen to anyone. Generally those safe will be those who are Gold, Silver or OW equivalent, or those who’ve paid for seats.

These [paid] seats are always held until flight closure and only released if a customer doesn’t arrive in that time. Some of those non status holders will pay to reserve seats as its perhaps a trip of a lifetime to them so they want to be sure of being together. I’ve seen Golds downgraded over others without status because they haven’t held their seat whereas all others have (yes, not often but it can happen). That’s why I always recommend people check in online as soon as they can, even if they can’t print the boarding pass.

If there is possibility of downgrade passengers will still go to the lounge and be told there. If the flight is oversold they will be kept landside.  If we’re expecting downgrades, seats are held in the next cabin down – usually the bulkhead in WT+.

In the situation of an aircraft change, this will generally not affect premium travellers adversely [….]  All would get seats still, though some maybe not the one they wanted.  We struggle more with offloads on these occasions as there are not so many World Traveller seats for downgraded passengers.  Again we deal with that as a voluntary thing seeking volunteers. Again any offloads would be the last ones to check in again, ie. sequence number.

I’ve had a situation at the gate where we had to remove 8 people from the flight because of weather (winds) not allowing enough fuel and all the passengers to travel. We had to ask for volunteers at the gate and we easily got enough. Had we not got enough the manager with me confirmed it would have been last to check in.

So all in all I do think this panic [over Avios passengers being targetted for downgrades] is unfortunate.  Of course things can and do happen but I find it sad that you’re taking one incident and making it seem like it’s happening all the time. From my first hand experience that is not the case at all.

They key thing is if it were, why do we take so much time actively seeking volunteers if we already know who is going to be downgraded?

Thanks for this, I think all of the readers appreciate it.  I would note, however:

Note the comment above about what happens to those who volunteer not to travel.  If it turns out that a seat is available at departure for any reason, your compensation will be rescinded and you will be made to fly in that seat, wherever on the plane it is.

Both of the cases I am currently looking at involved customers who were specifically told by Duty Managers that they had been downgraded because they were on Avios tickets.

When my family was downgraded from Club World three years ago, both myself and my wife were Silver so there was no protection for us as status holders.  The other case I am currently chasing on behalf of a HfP reader was where the reader had paid for seat selection but was on an Avios ticket and was still downgraded, so that is also not a guarantee of safety.

The idea that volunteers are initially sought at check-in is totally at odds with what happened to our contributor.  He was blocked from online check-in and told at Edinburgh that he was being downgraded.  The check-in desks for his flight at Gatwick had not even opened at this point so there clearly had been no attempt to seek volunteers.

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Category

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Comments (141)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • shd says:
    16 Mar16 March 07:13

    (Even back in 2014), revenue management were definitely in charge:

    http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/1589945-revenue-management-charge.html

    “Who cares if we IDB a few pax and stop them getting to their destination tight, at least we enforced the inflexibility of some other pax’s ticket…”

    Genius.

    • Polly says:
      16 Mar16 March 15:13

      We have done what shorhauldad suggested in the last post, literally in the queue, plane half full, we were on CE but had to wait 4 hrs from OSL. So just booked ourselves RFS in y and home in no time. They probably sold our CE tickets for £400 pp that what the price was when l checked that afternoon!

  • Scallder says:
    16 Mar16 March 07:23

    A little while ago now, but flying back from SFO in Club in Sep 2015 and the cabin was overbooked. Had 2for1 seats and seats selected for wife when booked (T-355) as still had Cathay Gold (how I miss those days) from Plat Amex.

    Managed to do OLCI so was all ok however there were multiple people in the queue in front of us getting bumped and re-routed through LAX. At no time were volunteers asked for, however this might have been something to do with the fact that there were 4 agents across all classes for an A380 flight.

    So whilst this might be policy as Mikeact mentioned, perhaps not followed to the letter at outstations.

    This was all before FLY was brought in as well, so perhaps it is the new system doing selections at T-24h which is now causing the issues?

  • Yemi says:
    16 Mar16 March 07:29

    Mine is a positive comment about BA. I was flying back from DXB to LHR in WT+ and was blocked fron checking in online. When I arrived at the airport, I was advised I’d been upgraded to CW. Happy days.

    • Anon says:
      16 Mar16 March 07:38

      Bear in mind that’s because it suited BA to do that for business and operational reasons, not that they were being kind or nice to you. 🙂

  • Anon says:
    16 Mar16 March 07:29

    I reserved our CW meals, 3 days before flight, no probs there.

    I considered, looking at paying to reserve a seat, the map was blocked/greyed out.

    I attempted OLCI on PC and BA phone app at T-24 for the EDI-LGW and then again T-24 for LGW-MLE.

    Both times it came up, “Please check in at the Airport.” – if you get this be concerned!

    Next day at 10am at EDI checkin, we were told either me or both of us are being forceably downgraded, but if just me downgrades and all the pax do not check in you could still yet fly in CW, what do you want to do?

    Bear in mind our LGW-MLE was scheduled for take off a full 8+ hours when we arrived at EDI airport that morning, as you can imagine we were initially started planning since our last trip to Rangali, so from approx 2 years before then….

    • Simmo says:
      16 Mar16 March 10:02

      I had this on my last 2-4-1 in F to Phoenix. “Please check in at the Airport”

      Not a downgrade, but the dreaded SSSS – Taken to one side at the gate frisked, bags totally emptied and fingers inside the waistband of my trousers.
      All went smoothly and had my fair share of Champagne in the end!

      Only disruption on the flight a Woman also in First kicking off about how much she spends with BA and her dodgy seat light and then again at the end of the flight her ” emotional upset” when some of those in Premium economy managed to leave the aircraft before her in First!

  • Anon says:
    16 Mar16 March 07:34

    reserved our CW meals, 3 days before flight, no probs there.

    I considered, looking at paying to reserve a seat, the map was blocked/greyed out.

    I attempted OLCI on PC and BA phone app at T-24 for the EDI-LGW and then again T-24 for LGW-MLE.

    Both times it came up, “Please check in at the Airport.” – if you get this be concerned!

    Next day at 10am at EDI checkin, we were told either me or both of us are being forceably downgraded, but if just me downgrades and all the pax do not check in you could still yet fly in CW, what do you want to do?

    Bear in mind our LGW-MLE was scheduled for take off a full 8+ hours when we arrived at EDI airport that morning, as you can imagine we were initially really looking forward to the BA CW experience, something I’d started planning since our last trip to Rangali (when we’d previously few out in Economy), so from approx 2 years before then….

    • the real harry1 says:
      16 Mar16 March 08:03

      that answers the question raised yesterday about whether reserving a meal protects your booking (as per prevents upgrading in lower class) – no it doesn’t help.

      how many seats are we talking about in the pool? With CW is it likely/ feasible you were the lowest hanging fruit either with many other passengers having higher status and/ or paying for their seats/ reserving their seats further in advance than you?

      • James A says:
        16 Mar16 March 08:29

        I was wondering this too, does ordering a special meal have an upside as well as a downside? I guess not

        • Klaus-Peter Dudas says:
          16 Mar16 March 13:02

          I’ve been upgraded from LHR-YVR from PE to CW despite having booked a meal. The meal followed me so didn’t get to choose from the CW menu but other than that it was all good.

    • James67 says:
      16 Mar16 March 08:30

      I think this tells us everything we need to know. In 35 years of flying I have never in any airport on any airline experienced downgrade/upgrade/offlloading except at the gate, or very rarely at airport check in for the flight sector in question. That Anon and others are experiencing issues even at check in for connecting flights many hours in advance, combined with seat/OLCI issues, and increased frequency of reports of redemotions being targetted, it seems that the procedure is now systens-driven.

  • John says:
    16 Mar16 March 07:35

    Not sure I believe this spokesperson for BA.

    OLCI is not always available and they fail to address this in their reply.

    Makes me very nervous about using our 2 for 1 coupon and points.

    • Anon says:
      16 Mar16 March 08:00

      I think this is the rational view I’d have towards this

      1) yes it is now effectively a standby companion ticket
      2) use it on routes with high availability and frequent flights.
      3) if LGW BA Duty Manager is to be believed if you or your regular 241 travel partner have been downgraded previously, you will not be selected again on future trips.

      It would however like many things I was told at LGW to be great to get it in writing..!

      • the real harry1 says:
        16 Mar16 March 08:04

        3) sounds like a platitude/ lie

        • Lady London says:
          16 Mar16 March 17:18

          Yes. This is the reason some business travellers I know make a point of not checking in on a busy route if they’re booked in J.

          Despite all the cuts BA still ensures it treats corporate customers better. Your status, flying pattern and business you’re affiliated with does count. The bet on such a J traveller not checking in online on a route they know to be busy is that they get upgraded to First. Which depending on the above, can happen remarkably often.

          This I know from working for large corporates.

      • Wally1976 says:
        16 Mar16 March 09:13

        Unfortunately number 2 seems to substantially reduce the value of the voucher to me. I.e. it is most valuable when used on routes with limited availability on peak dates.

  • Gavin says:
    16 Mar16 March 07:46

    We were a family of four travelling LHR to Rome at Christmas. Booking made via BA holidays (flight and hotel). Successfully checked in on line the day before flight. On arrival at LHR told there was a technical problem with allocated plane and the replacement was smaller so we were bumped off to a later flight as there weren’t enough seats. Another family we were travelling with checked in on line, but arrived at LHR before us – they weren’t affected. We asked why we’d been selected – no direct answer but told regular BA flyers normally prioritised. Looked like another 20 or so people in the same boat. Sent to another desk and received immediate compensation in pre paid MasterCard.

  • Mr Bridge says:
    16 Mar16 March 07:46

    my one point is this,

    The check in agent is clearly UK based.
    I have had experience with BA staff in other parts of the world, and most are incapable of making any decision, and follow the ‘bark’ of a local manager that terrorises them, these managers are normally full of their own importance, and have no comprehension of customer service.

    There is no continuity in BA’s staff in the UK and those abroad.

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