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Comment by SteveNuts

3 days ago

That blows my mind, I would expect maybe 1 or 2 passengers per plane at most. I'm trying to think of what factors would cause that many no-shows, it has to be mostly missed connections?

I can't imagine spending hundreds of dollars and just not showing up.

A friend of mine works for a Management Consultancy firm and they have full flex tickets if they miss the 8pm flight home they can take the next one or fly back the next morning. All without additional fees. So I believe business travel is the biggest factor when it comes to missed flights.

Side note: His employer is the biggest client of a major European airline.

  • No additional fees, but the cost of the ticket is typically sky-high. In many cases the company could purchase 3 restricted-fare tickets for less than the unrestricted fare. (And also, the consultants want to get home, they HATE staying extra nights, so they have inherent motivation to catch the original flight). You'd think that management consulting firms, you know, who are supposed to be good at optimization and reducing costs, would have figured this out.

    • * A massive bulk of flex rates is different price than a single flex ticket

      * when I travelled to a single city with 20+ colleagues for several years, our nightly hotel rate was less than quarter of published rate. I don't think we got anything like that on Airlines, but nevertheless, bulk gets discounts.

      * I forget details but between specific frequent cities which had hourly flights, we had full flexibility and we used this all the time. So we might catch a flight hour earlier if there was one available, or hour later if need be than booked.

      Basically to everybody's point, business travel is very different than vacation travel and intuition from once a year personal trip don't apply.

      1 reply →

    • They aren’t following the same rules as you, they’re on negotiated rates/agreements.

    • ... or perhaps they prioritize ensuring their consultants feel like they're being looked after - replacing them when they find another job is very expensive.

      4 replies →

    • > You'd think that management consulting firms, you know, who are supposed to be good at optimization and reducing costs, would have figured this out.

      Maybe they've figured out that enabling their employees to stay a few extra hours without worry to finish a deal is worth it.

      3 replies →

Keep in mind they sell a lot of tickets where one of the features that allows for a premium price is that they allow late cancellations or changes to other flights. Holiday travelers are pretty "reliable", but business travelers might have changed needs at the drop of a hat (say you meet another prospective client on a business trip and decide to stay another day to fit in a face-to-face meeting).

European airports in 2019: A lot of these would be 10 euro Ryanair/Easyjet/Whatever flights, probably.

(The really ultra cheap Ryanair flights are less of a thing now, but in 2019 they were very much a factor)

Remember lots of business travelers have connections or flex schedules. When I had to go to the West coast for business, I usually have full fare tickets and book a later flight. If I had flexibility, I’d switch to an earlier plane or first class.

I'm sure other factors such as sudden illness and migrateable tickets make a sizeable chunk too.