United Loads out of Melbourne?

[Ben W]

Flying Melb-LAX on United on Saturday and wondering if anyone knows how full the flights have been on the direct flight? And if anyone has the info, how full the flight is showing for Saturday?

Cheers,

Ben

[Andrew M]

Looks very full if you go off the Select Seats map provided at www.ual.com when making the booking.

However www.seatcounter.com shows loads to be lowish.

Again not sure how accurate seatcounter.com actually is....

Can anyone actually confirm :) ?

[Daniel F]

Looks very full if you go off the Select Seats map provided at www.ual.com when making the booking.

However www.seatcounter.com shows loads to be lowish.

Again not sure how accurate seatcounter.com actually is....

Can anyone actually confirm :) ?

Actually, seatcounter.com suggests that the flight is quite full as well. If the flight was empty, Seat Counter would show 9's across the economy booking classes.

First and Business class is looking quite empty though.

[Andrew M]

Actually, seatcounter.com suggests that the flight is quite full as well. If the flight was empty, Seat Counter would show 9's across the economy booking classes.

First and Business class is looking quite empty though.

Well aware of that!

There are currently 58 seats in Economy free, so that's about an 80% load factor.

Not really that good, and as the front is very full, not good at all for these flights.

Full of bargain basement fares I would think

Wonder how much cargo she is carrying

[Daniel F]

Well aware of that!

There are currently 58 seats in Economy free, so that's about an 80% load factor.

Not really that good, and as the front is very full, not good at all for these flights.

Full of bargain basement fares I would think

Wonder how much cargo she is carrying

You can't just add up all the booking classes to get the number of Economy seats available... that's not how it works. The cheaper booking classes are subsets of the more expensive booking classes. Looking at the availability, I would guess that the flight is actually full and the remaining seats will be overbooked seats.

[Mike Scott]

Here are the current numbers

MEL - LAX Saturday, January 3, 2009
First
CAP-BKD-NRSA
14-04-04
Business
CAP-BKD-NRSA
73-22-00
Economy
CAP-BKD-NRSA
260-334-01

826 MEL-LAX 14:00 9:10 744 N/R

First and Business look pretty empty, back is oversold by 74.

MS

[Andrew M]

Thanks Mike :)

Shows seatcounter is not that accurate either then, but good for a guide

[D Chan]

First and Business look pretty empty, back is oversold by 74.

MS

With the back of the plane oversold by so much, they are likely to offer one class one way upgrades for around 900 dollars AUD. Good deal if you've got cheap economy tickets and want to do transpac in business!!!

[Chris W]

Would it be the new J class though, because then the $900 might not be worth it.

[Andrew M]

Not the new J class!

[Daniel F]

Shows seatcounter is not that accurate either then, but good for a guide

Seatcounter is actually 100% (well, close to 100% apart from timing difference between various GDS) accurate. Its purpose is to show the number of seats for sale for each flight... not the number of empty seats on a flight.

[Andrew M]

Daniel F :) Very much straight to the point but helpful :p

Thanks

[D Chan]

Would it be the new J class though, because then the $900 might not be worth it.

True - it would be better value for money if it was the new J Class. However even if it wasn't it's still not too bad. I don't know if the rate for the upgrade has changed since last year but at least that's the rate they had. Not bad considering you will get, priority line through customs, access to a Star Alliance airline lounge, priority boarding, priority baggage tag, more comfortable legroom for a 13 or so hour flight (instead of getting stuck in cattle class), possible chance to sit on the upper deck and better food etc.

[Karl M]

I noticed on todays UA LAX-MEL flight, only 85 PAX on board!

[Andrew M]

WOW!

I just remembered why United loads may be high

Lots of people re-booked from the V Australia launch fares due to their delayed launch!

From being oversold to not even enough passengers to fill a 717

[Krzysztof M]

Once I flew on BA747 Narita-Heathrow with only 40 pax. Flat beds all over economy ;)

[Karl M]

Even worse loads for todays flight LAX-MEL.

73 POB.

[Jon Harris]

I remember in 1995 when UA had just introduced their SYD-SFO service. The flight I was on has 27 pax only - I was on a business class ticket but soon made my way to the very comfortable 4 across economy seat. Very nice way to fly indeed!:)

[Ben W]

Back in the states now and I confirm it was a completely full flight.

[NickN]

Just a question regarding UA overselling Economy seats by 74 odd seats. How can you overbook by so much? What happens to the pax who end up with no seat and won't pay for the upgrade?

[Ben W]

Not sure what they did on 826 out of Melbourne with the extra people, but when took off, business and First were full as well, so some people must have been upgraded for free or something? The check in line was the longest, and slowest moving that I have ever seen it in Melb- which is the reason the flight was late leaving. We got in line at 10:45 and stood in it until 12:15 before reaching the counter! There were at least 150 and maybe 200+ people behind us. It didn't seem as though they had enough staff on to handle the full flight or something?

Our flight from LAX-ORD was also oversold and they announced at the gate that they needed 6 people to surrender their seats in exchange for traveling first class on the following flight and also getting a free round-trip ticket that can be used from anywhere to anywhere and back in the continental US before the end of 09........which I though at the time was a good deal........and so did the other 40+ people that jumped out of their chairs and rushed the ticket counter.

[Andrew M]

Again I suspect the high loads were due to V Australia booking people onto the United flight.

I remember flying UA alot when growing up and constant overselling of seats

[NickN]

Would they be obligated to upgrade the oversold pax to another class for free and get them to their destination even if they refuse to pay to upgrade due to the airlines error? I assume a passenger who purchased one of the oversold seats would have a claim against the airline for damages if they missed a connection overseas or suffered any losses etc from being bumped from the flight?

I am pretty sure it was on Airline, the EasyJet one where one of the staff or maybe even the narrator mentioned they oversold seats on EasyJet flights because they anticipated a certain number would not turn up for each flight. Seems kind of silly, but thats just my opinion of course.

[James K]

Would they be obligated to upgrade the oversold pax to another class for free and get them to their destination even if they refuse to pay to upgrade due to the airlines error? I assume a passenger who purchased one of the oversold seats would have a claim against the airline for damages if they missed a connection overseas or suffered any losses etc from being bumped from the flight?

I am pretty sure it was on Airline, the EasyJet one where one of the staff or maybe even the narrator mentioned they oversold seats on EasyJet flights because they anticipated a certain number would not turn up for each flight. Seems kind of silly, but thats just my opinion of course.

Very few flights where I work are only sold to the capacity of the J, W and Y cabin. F is never oversold but J, W and Y are all the time and depending on time of year and route the oversale numbers vary greatly. Obviously seats in forward cabins are used in the event of an oversold Y cabin. However in the event the oversale does not clear with noshows, which by the way occur on just about every flight then volunteers are called for and offered monetary compensation for their inconvenience and in some cases upgrades on their new flight.

The airlines has no responsibility if a pax misses a connection with another separately booked itinerary. If you did have such a connection then you wouldn't really volunteer anyway!

[NickN]

I never knew that overselling was so common.

[Nigel C]

I never knew that overselling was so common.

The old board covered this a few times over the years...tis a shame it's all gone otherwise I'd suggest a search!:p

[Sam Chui]

From my 800,000 miles travelling United experience, UA will offer Complimentary upgrade to Premier, Premier Exec and 1K when Economy is oversold. It is actually a good thing if you are a United Premier or above fly Y class when the flight are overbooked in Economy. No money needed for upgrade. I was lucky to have numerous flight upgraded completely free of charge at check in. On couple occasion, they even refunded the upgrade certificate I used back to my mileage plus account!! (terrific act)

Do a search on Flyertalk UA forum you will find out.

ExpertFlyer is another good tool to show flight availability and seat map but you need to pay monthly fee ($5?)

During low season SYD-LAX or SFO, it is NOT unusual to see UA loads in the low hundreds, this has always been the case since route launch. Australia route perform very well during peak seasons but failed to reach average load factor in low season.