Overbooking, why in the recent Ryanair case the "voluntary" passenger lost thousands of euros

In recent days many sites have written about what happened on a Ryanair flight departing from Bergamo and headed toward Palma de Mallorca. One of many cases of overbooking happening in skies around the world, but very rarely with the low-cost Irish airline, which is not used to using this strategy.

The technical reason was a machine change from the new 737max to an older 737NG, identical planes for the distracted passenger except for having 8 fewer seats. This led to overbooking.

Why it was an atypical overbooking

Normally these situations occur at check-in counters and, more rarely, at the gate before boarding.  One hardly notices that there are too many passengers on board the plane, but sometimes it happens, and the situation is definitely different in this case.

In the first case the passenger departing from or heading to the old contient Is protected by European legislation which obliges companies to re-route passengers who are denied boarding, reimbursement of any expenses (including possible hotel accommodation) and compensation ranging from a minimum of 250 to a maximum of 600€.

What occurred on board Ryanair, however, is a very different situation, as documented in the various videos the problem was encountered when all passengers were already on board, thus a very different situation.

Why the hero who sacrificed himself lost thousands

As recounted by all sources, the issue was "life or death," meaning if a volunteer did not turn up, the plane would not take off and everyone would be dropped off and then, probably, the flight would be rescheduled by refusing gate boarding to an "unfortunate" passenger.

Here finally a volunteer popped up who accepted 250€, which is what the regulations require, but at that point the passenger leverage could have been much higher. As we have recounted in several articles the volunteer could have squeezed thousands of euros out of Ryanair.

The bill is soon done. If the plane did not leave, as threatened by the flight attendant, the safe damage net of knock-on delays on subsequent flights on the same plane would have been about 50k euros for Ryanair. The math is soon done 250€ per passenger for or 189 passengers aboard the 737. Assuming then that the plane would have reached PMI 3 hours late, it would have departed just as late to return to Bergamo forcing FR to compensate the passengers on that flight as well.

The rules in this situation

In this specific situation, in fact, it is no longer a matter of European legislation, but of negotiation between customer and supplier. The carrier has every interest in leaving as soon as possible, and the eventual volunteer has every right to get what he wants for his sacrifice. Here, then. If I had been in that situation I would have raised my hand, but asked for much more than the paltry compensation and re-routing on the next flight.

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