You fight the traffic, negotiate the parking, slog through security — and then get the boot because your plane is overbooked. Unfair as it seems, airlines can legally bump you even if you have a confirmed reservation and a kid getting married 3,000 miles away. And although the odds are slim that you'll get bumped involuntarily — one in 10,000 — the number of disappointed non-passengers in the first half of 2003 was up nearly 40 percent over the same period in 2002.
But a little knowledge of how bumping works, and of your rights as a bumpee, minimizes your chance of delay — and may even win you some travel perks. The following rules apply to domestic flights.
To help ensure you'll get airborne, choose your airline carefully.
JetBlue, for example, bumps so rarely that only 10 passengers — all of whom volunteered — gave up seats in the first half of 2003. Conversely, you're most likely to be grounded if you fly Delta, AirTran or Atlantic Southeast, which had the three worst records for overbooking.
For a list of airlines and their bumping rates, go to airconsumer.ost.dot.gov.
If you really want to make that wedding, arrive at the airport at least an hour early, check your bags promptly and make sure your spot on the plane is earmarked.
Before bumping anyone, airlines must ask for volunteers and then offer them compensation and a seat on a later flight. Airlines may first try to elicit volunteers by offering vouchers for miles, but dealmaking here is de rigueur. Tom Parsons of Bestfares.com says he recently watched bumpees on a flight to Mexico negotiate $800 in compensation, plus hotel accommodations and first-class seats on the next day's flight.
Lacking volunteers, agents usually target the last passengers to arrive at the gate. If you can be booked on a flight that will get you to your destination within one hour of your original arrival time, you're entitled to nothing. But if you'll be one to two hours late, the airline owes you cash: the cost of the fare to your destination, up to $200. If you are delayed by more than two hours, the compensation doubles, to as much as $400.
You're out of luck if you haven't met the deadline for checking in. Most airlines require that you get to the gate at least 10 minutes before departure time. Some insist on as much as an hour.