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MEP SEÁN KELLY has vowed to ban airlines from over-booking flights after being left stranded in Dublin Airport yesterday.
Speaking to EuroParlRadio, Kelly described airlines over-selling flights as “very bad practice and totally disrespectful of citizens”.
Kelly had his ticket on the Dublin to Frankfurt flight with German airline Lufthansa booked and paid for well in advance.
When Kelly, the leader of Fine Gael in the European Parliament, arrived at the check-in desk in Dublin Airport, he was told the flight was full and that he couldn’t get on it.
He said there were other people in the airport in a similar situation so it raises “a serious issue”. He intends to do everything he can to bring in legislation that will stop airlines overbooking flights.
The Ireland South MEP described the situation:
It’s a bit like a shopkeeper having six apples to sell and he decides to say he has eight to sell. So the two people who come last, he says ‘Sorry you paid for apples but I’ve none left and I’ll take care of you some other time’.
He waited for almost an hour before deciding to take action. “I got onto my office and booked an alternative flight to Paris and got the train down and got here [Strasbourg] last night at midnight,” he said.
Lufthansa were contacted for a comment but haven’t yet responded. Kelly said that the Lufthansa staff did offer him alternative options but he was under time constraints to travel as soon as possible.
According to the website Consumerhelp.ie, if you are denied boarding because your flight is overbooked, your airline must offer you an alternative flight or refund the price of your ticket.
They must also provide you with food, refreshments and reasonable access to a phone or email. If waiting overnight for your alternative flight, you must be given accommodation and transport between the airport and your accommodation.
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It’s amazing how important something is when it happens to you
By the looks of this, we could solve the housing crisis by making some TDs homeless.
Maybe a bit of biological warfare in the Dáil would solve the health crisis? I’ll get the weaponised smallpox, you keep them talking.
It’s a pity he is not homeless and waiting on a hospital appointment too…
To the great and the Good, been happening to the great unwashed for years , and not a bother, Lord the arrogance.
Threatening people with a biological weapon is a terror threat and should be treated as such.
You go contact the Overreaction Police, John. I’ll wait here and keep an eye on Louis.
You beat me to it tom !
Do you know who I am, ……………Nope
Thank God he used his apple analogy to explain. None of us could possibly have comprehended the reasoning behind overselling a flight without it.
Without apples we wouldn’t be able to train our Luas drivers, they truly are the most dynamic fruit.
He probably meant iPhones, iPads and macs.
This is great news for us. All we have to do is put him on an average salary and get him to try to get a place to rent in Dublin. And likewise put him through a night in A and E and we’ll have all sorts of legislation pushed through as a result.
Great comment. ..so very true
Aoife,
You can come and stay in my rent free home anytime!!
Alan, you realise that she’s not actually Jessica Alba, right?
Jessica Alias maybe?
I’ll wear a blindfold.
What? Tell him aint true Aoife! Tell him.
Now he wants to do something because he got inconvienced… Has he been under a rock…. This is going on a while….welcome to the real world Mr Kelly….
Welcome to the realworld
speaking of realworld
Is it true that MEP are allowed to buy duty free when travelling within the EU
And will Mt Kelly be refunded any compensation received to the exchequer ?
Ryan air doesn’t overbook
Correct – the only European airline.
New rules came in recently, Ryanair now overbook as far as 204 pax
Yes they do!
Their website says they do not overbook.
Ryanair don’t overbook because they keep all the money for the tickets they sell.
Lufthansa don’t necessarily get all the money from the tickets they sell because a lot of their customers make bookings using fully flexible and refundable tickets, and at any time can decide not to fly on that particular flight or just get their money back.
That’s why they oversell.
He failed to mention that Lufthansa would have given him at least €150 on top of a refund.
Lads I work for them the last decade, Ryanair now overbook, the aircraft holds 189 pax and can be booked up as far as 204. If they need you to change or offer you to change you get €150 and refund
have visions of Ming giving him the two finger salute from his window seat!
Unquestioning TTIP supporter gets left at airport………………………..good news.
It was the tax payers who were paying,
He was using taxpayers money to book a flight which probably cost ten times the price of the same flight with Aer Lingus or Ryanair.
Can we have an enquiry.??
Maybe he hoped to get there a hour or two earlier.
Maybe he thinks he- and his time- is more important than the rest of us.?
Oh how toxic is the stench emanating from the trough….
Neither Aer Lingus or Ryanair fly to Strasbourg, John.
He wasn’t flying to Strasbourg, he was flying to Frankfurt. Aer Lingus have twice daily flights from Dublin to Frankfurt.
Yes and then on to Strasbourg. There are no direct flights to Strasbourg from Dublin. Lufthansa fly to Strasbourg from Frankfurt, so he was flying Dublin-Frankfurt-Strasbourg.
‘“I got onto my office and booked an alternative flight to Paris and got the train down and got here [Strasbourg] last night at midnight,” he said.’
I see. My bad.
@John Joseph McDermott Aer Lingus do fly to Frankfurt but often Lufthansa are the same price or cheaper.
What a load of false.fefamitory nill. Do some research and see how obnoxiously incorrect your comment is.
Happened to me before and I got €600, I would happily pay for a one way ticket for this eejit to leave us alone
If it happens to ordinary folk no one bats an eyelid .. But when it happens to be a member of government it’s a case of ban the airline .. Hell hath no fury than a Fine Gael man scorned
Nothing better to be doing! Airlines overbook because on average X number of people fail to show for their flights. When planes are overbooked normally there is someone happy to take the offer of delayed flight an accommodation
But he was clearly too late to the airport to be on standby.
Every time I see someone getting sheeeiiity with airline staff, they’ve failed to follow basic tips like showing up early if you have no boarding pass, reading the baggage policy, reading the online boarding pass policy etc etc.
I’d imagine there was some cringeworthy “I’m an MEP” stuff going on here.
Being late or early is irrelevant. He had a valid ticket which was paid for in advance.
It’s clearly not irrelevant, because someone, at some point, checked in to the last seat. It’s like those people who bring a family of 5 on a transatlantic, don’t check in early, are last on the plane, and then expect to be accommodated to sit together when they have random middle seats around the plane.
He had a valid ticket subject to the terms and conditions of carriage. He, or an assistant, will have checked a box and agreed to said terms and conditions.
He is entitled to compensation:
http://www.lufthansa.com/online/portal/lh/cmn/generalinfo?nodeid=2161511&l=en
An airline can refuse boarding for operational reasons, just like they can move you and downgrade you. I have seen oversold flights enough, personally, to ensure I get my seat assigned as soon as possible. Mr Kelly travels a lot, presumably weekly, for business and will have learned a valuable lesson.
Why on earth should anybody have to turn up early to get a seat that they ha s has already booked and paid for in full? What a ridiculous industry. Gets away with packing us like sardines, and has us trained to be grateful if they haven’t sold our dear to somebody else.
*sear
It’s not a case of selling ‘your seat’ to someone else. The 187 (or whatever) people who manage to check-in and board the plan are just as entitled to the seat as you are.
‘You’ in this case are the unlucky person who got there last, or didnt check-in on-line, or whatever.
According to this, Lufthansa allows online and mobile check-in from Dublin, up until 60 mins before flight:
http://www.lufthansa.com/online/portal/lh/ie/info_and_services/checkin/checkin_info
It’s regrettable policy, but you can avoid being the unlucky one. I’m nervous any time I’m not able to check in online, and I tend to ensure I’m reasonably early because 95% of my flying is on business and there are annoying consequences to either missing a flight or not getting on one.
That Kelly wasn’t even given a seatless boarding pass and offered standby at the gate suggests that he was big time laggedy last to check in, and tried to do so at the airport.
Regardless of if you turn up or not, you have paid for a seat it’s yours. They took your money to provide a service.
They should not be allowed to sell it to potentially two people as, once you have given them money, it’s not theirs to do that with.
If you turn up before the mandated time and they don’t have a seat (after taking your money) how is that not fraud?
explain that with apples please !
Ían Ó Ceallaigh, airlines have terms and conditions which one signs up to when booking a seat which do allow them to do this, provided they offer alternatives should your flight be overbooked.
Unfortunately it’s not irrelevant.
Seats on an aircraft are on a first come, first serve basis, regardless of when you booked your flight.
If you don’t have a boarding pass before arriving to to their airport, you’d definitely want to be arriving as early as you can.
Standby at the boarding gate isn’t a thing in Dublin Airport unfortunately.
The DAA don’t allow it (unlike in other airports)
All pax need to have left check-in with a confirmed seat on their boarding pass.
They have you well trained , Ronan. There’s a good little passenger.
Happened to me with Luftansa two days in a row. I was happy enough with the cash compensation and free hotel.
But you are not a hugely important MEP with far, far better things to do
This is common practice on all airlines.
Oh, that’s all right then.
Not all airlines over book.
Lufthansa are particularly bad offenders. I’ve used them a few times for European travel and they always seem to be looking for volunteers to take a later flight and 150 euro.
That said, it’s clear Mssr Kelly rocked up to the check-in desk 45 minutes before his flight, as evidenced by his being amongst the unlucky.
Overselling is common policy, and usually matches up with expected no-show rates. However, it’s clear that LH oversell by up to 3 seats, as I’ve often seen them looking for that many volunteers. One is forgiveable, 3 not so much.
They are hoors for it and they won’t offer business class seats as alternatives when they’re available on the same flights either.
I’m not at all a fan of Lufthansa, they’re also usually significantly more expensive than the alternatives,
€150 is what they would have to pay you for denied boarding plus a rebooking. They offer nothing more to volunteers than what they are obliged by law to give in the event nobody volunteers. miserable feckars
Any chance they’d refuse to bring him back, useless freeloader we can do without
Why didn’t he fly with Ryanair ?
They don’t fly to Strasbourg.
And even if they did, they’re also in the habit of overbooking flights. Happened to some friends of ours only a couple of weeks ago – they were supposed to meet us in southern Germany, and instead had to drive all the way from Calais after Ruinair left around 20 travellers stranded from overbooking. Morons.
Arrogant Mr Kelly thinks he knows how airlines should operate. Go away you tragic man.
Sean Kelly needs to research the phrase
Hoist by his own petard……..
He probably missed his gravy train too.Political opportunist like Regina Doherty-career goes belly up so they head for the public trough to feed off.
If it helps in keeping the cost of flights down then I’m ok with it
Many hotels over book too. It is policy in some hotels and want them overbooked by at least 5% a month.
2 days before arrival and mad phone calls trying to find out who was coming. And if they were all coming then question them as to if they would stay at a different hotel. 25 rooms would be needed for some nights. Horrible job for the person as they hate letting people down, bosses however only see the money.
This is standard practice with airlines to overbook flights by around 10% as on average 10% of passengers are no shows.
Airlines operate on such tight margins it is unsurprising that they do this.
Unfortunate if you are on an overbooked flight where all passengers show up?
Did this dude arrive at the airport 2 hours before take-off – as advised by the airline?
If he got to check in on time he would have got on the flight. No VFO’s?
He did.
ok, ian, he should have checked in earlier then.
The issue was not about checking in on time. I was there an hour before check in closed and the flight was already over booked. I am a frequent traveler and always check in online however I did not have that option with this ticket as it was booked through Swiss. The flight was well overbooked and on a bank holiday weekend in Europe everyone had to get home and back to work. So besides them letting us down completely they showed me absolutely no duty of care. They had no compassion for the situation I had now found myself in through their making and offered me absolutely no solution to get home that day nor did they give me any assistance in trying to look into any other options. All this while trying to care for my 5 year old daughter who I was traveling with.
This has happened to Millions of people over the years and all of a sudden It happens to an MEP and its all wrong it the law has to become stricter .But at the end of the day it is greed by the Airline if you book a seat if you don’t show up that seat should be empty and if they do fill the seat you should get a refund.
Its already covered by European legislation about compensation and rebooking. Any airline which offers flexible tickets has to overbook their flights or risk sending them away half empty at peak demand times.
They make plenty money selling flexible tickets, its not like it’s a charitable act and they need to be compensated for flying an empty plane.
They don’t “have to” overbook, they want to. No need to apologise on their behalf.
A true man of the people that can afford to fly. He should be obliged to use our national airline if his party didn’t sell it off.
I would rather he used the cheapest airline
Have you found another forum for your useless rant braybuddy ?
I’m sure if he himself wasn’t inconvenienced by this, his response to someone else would probably be something like “tough, you missed the plane”.
It seems to be a trait of these useless FG TDs that they expect special treatment (ie:TD murphy getting a garda excort to Dublin to catch a flight), and if they don’t get it, they think they can cause a national emergency! They definitely need to be brought down a peg or two, given a dose of reality. I’ve never seen such an incompetent bunch causing such hastle over what the rest of us experience on a daily basis.
Happened to us flying back from the US a few years back. Pain in the backside but when flying US to Europe they have to compensate each passenger €600 and meals and a night in a hotel.
When you’ve booked and paid for flights they should have to allow you on.
Also all our bags were on board too so we had nothing but the clothes on our backs!
Plane can’t fly with your bags of you are not on the flight!
Wayne the plane flew with our bags on board. I was there I know!
We flew the following day and collected our bags in Dublin.
As we were about to board they told us it was overbooked and our bags went without us
Plane cannot fly with unaccompanied baggage onboard. That is a law, it must be removed before flight. If the airline said otherwise they were lying.
Matty we were told the bags went on our flight and we were booked on another the following day as they were overbooked. Happens all the time in the US.
We collected our bags at baggage reclaim in Dublin 24 hrs later so if our bags were removed why weren’t they given to us?
Regardless of what the law says, planes fly all the time with unaccompanied baggage! Every day passengers get to their destination only to find their bags didn’t make it there with them.
Sometimes the airline says it’s on the next flight or two and give the option to wait for it or have it delivered, sometimes it arrives the next day, and sometimes it never turns up.
Go to lost luggage at an airport and see for yourself the passengers being told their luggage wasn’t on their flight and is coming on another one.
Yes, but those bags are rechecked in by a ground handling agency who take responsibility for the bag, just like freight. There is also the caveat that the passenger would have thought the bag was on the plane with them. If a bag is loaded onto a plane as checked baggage and the passenger does not board the aircraft then that bag is offloaded, no matter how long the process takes.
Ok I get your point but I still don’t understand why they wouldn’t have given us back our bags when we couldn’t board.
We had children with us so we were hugely inconvenienced even though we were well compensated at €600 each.
Probably because it would have been too much like hard work for them to return your bags to you.
Is this really news? Albeit nice of them to leave that useless FU&$ER, behind, any Chance they might arrange a one way ticket to somewhere remote for our new dail contingent?
To the people who are asking why he didn’t turn up early or check in online, I don’t think that makes a difference. I doubt the airline use that criteria when offloading passengers. They use other criteria like, is the passenger travelling alone etc. I was denied boarding due to overbooking on two occasions. The most recent one I was called 6 hours before my flight was due to leave – that’s before the airport check in opens
A mere refund is a totally inadequate remedy. An automatic compensation of 5 times ticket price would sort this practice out. Just banning it will not work.
I say that I’ve booked in my baggage. The airline knows that is not true but they are required by security standards to double check. This can be a real nuisance.
Never respond to a name call if you have a boarding pass. You can guess why your name is called.
If there was automatic compensation as you say it would be passed directly on to customers though higher ticket prices.
If the practice was banned leaving X% of seats on busy flight empty the loss or revenue would be recouped from higher ticket prices for passengers.
Overbooking is an efficiency measure, sometimes inconvenient, but not often.
Overreaction much?
There is automatic compensation
http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-rights/air/index_en.htm
But it’s not 5 times ticket price as Fiona suggested it should be.
Maybe I missed it in the article but, how soon before departure did he present himself at the desk? If it’s close to take off and people haven’t turned up, the airlines are entitled to allocate the seats to people on stand-by.
I think that’s a different situation. If he was late for check in, then fair enough they can give his seat away. But he would have to be quite late in order for this to happen. The article says he was denied boarding because the flight was overbooked
the article only gives one side of the story – a politician’s side at that. – the alternative is to have empty seats when there needn’t be – which is wasteful.
This is what people are sick of,happens to a politician and legislation is brought in.
Maybe he should not have showed up for his flight last minute… entitled douche.
Obviously Lufthansa are sadly lacking when it comes to an ethical way of doing business. As well as double booking seats, they’re quite willing to fly greyhounds from this country to China, where they end up in a racetrack in Macau, which is in effect death row for these unfortunate creatures, who are not front runners on the tracks here. These dogs are housed, along with 800 greyhounds, on the track at Macau, and if they are not placed in five consecutive races, they are put down. The also run the risk of injury on a hard surface, and animal welfare organisations on the ground in Macau have been calling for a number of years for the closure of this inhumane track. Lufthansa has been asked not to facilitate the shipping of these dogs to this hellhole racetrack, but they have refused, saying: “As a company, we are not able to determine the purpose for which animals are making their journey.” They know where these greyhounds are going and what happens to them, but they care more about their profits than what happens to these unfortunate animals. Please sign a petition calling on Lufthansa not to fly greyhounds to China at https://www.change.org/p/lufthansa-stop-transporting-irish-greyhounds-to-china
Do those animals need some kind of export licence?
Could that be targeted instead.
Oohhh shit he does not know what we ordinary plebs have to put up with
Another comment – I could not check in on line as this was a re-route ticket from Swiss. However I was there well in advance – over an hour before check-in even closed. It wasn’t a case of turning up late or last minute for the check-in. Lufthansa had over-booked well in advance. There were at least 5 other people waiting to be re-routed and I am sure others came after me.
I too was booked on the same flight with my 5 year old daughter. When I arrived to check in an hour before it closed, I was told that the flights were over-booked and I had to go to the Luthansa counter for them to re-route me home. They had no other available flights available that day, and could only get me on a flight the next day. I explained to them that I needed to be back in Geneva by 9h00 the following day (I was connecting through Frankfurt). Lufthansa did absolutely nothing to help me get home that day. They left me to figure it out myself. I went straight to the Aer Lingus desk in desperation – and I came across a wonderfully helpful and caring woman (named Catherine) who did her utmost to see how she could get me and my 5 year old home. She managed to get me standby on a flight to Paris. Of course, we only knew at the 39th minute before the flight if we could get on – so that was very stressful. At that stage, we did not know how we could get to Geneva – but using my ap for SNCF I could see that all the trains to Geneva were fully booked. We managed to circumnavigate around Paris (which I am not very familiar with especially with a 5 year old daughter and our luggage!). We got to Gare du Lyon which as you can imagine on bank holiday weekend was jam packed. We did get a train as far as Lyon – but missed all other connections to Geneva. At that stage in Lyon, which was close to 21h00 – me and my daughter had to go looking for a hotel. We did manage to get a train the following morning at 6h36 and made our way to Geneva. The way Lufhansa treated us is an absolute disgrace. Big thanks to Aer Lingus for all their help.
It’s wonderful how well our MEPs understand the plight of the ordinary citizen when they suffer in the same way. Until something happens to them or to a family member they are blissfully unaware of the problems of the ordinary person, or they simply don’t care because they don’t have to!
He could get the Quinn SF/IRA jet and stay in Europe.
Welcome to the real world!!
Oh come on!!!! This has been happening for the whole of passenger aviation history. Hotels do it too, funny how important it is when it happens to him. It happens every day to 1000′s people around the world
Well done Lufthansa, horrible shower of #ankers
They’ve hooked up!!
Lol… Welcome to the real world fella…
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