A glitch in Air India's reservation system has brought in fresh trouble for the airlines which overbooked passengers by 31% as Kolkata saw angry protests by passengers on Saturday.
Air India flight AI 731 was scheduled to leave from Kolkata to Guwahati and had a maximum seating capacity of 144 passengers. But 194 people showed up for the flight. Airlines do resort to overbooking keeping cancellations in mind, but Saturday's incident was an unprecedented one which left 50 passengers stranded, a Times of India report said.
"...We do have 2-3 percent overbookings but on Saturday, it was 31% on the Kolkata-Guwahati flight. The passengers were justifiably furious and we didn't have any explanations to offer. An error seems to have occurred in the reservation system. Despite 144 tickets being sold, the system kept accepting reservations. Thus, 194 passengers turned up for the flight," an AI official told The Times of India.
On 12 April, a Hindu report mentioned that there has been a sharp rise in incidents of overbooking flights. From August 2016 to February 2017, around 12,957 passengers were not allowed to board domestic flights, which accounts for a 65.75 percent increase compared to the same period a year earlier.
While some airlines offer refund for ticket, others provide hotel accommodation or alternative flights.
In this case, the airline accommodated the stranded passengers in a hotel and had them fly in two flights the following day.
The Civil Aviation Ministry took notice of the issue and said that it may issue fresh guidelines for domestic airlines on overbooking flights.
The Times of India report said that earlier flights used to overbook by 10 percent, but with the cancellations coming down, the cap on overbooking was reduced to 2-3 percent.
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