During the previous week, I had an incredibly uncomfortable experience on my way to my destination. Although I had made a reservation for my place, someone was sitting in it when I boarded the aircraft. At first, I thought they had made a mistake but their behavior suggested that they believed I had taken their seat!
I presented them with my ticket but they insisted that it was theirs and that I was wrong. This made me feel very humiliated and baffled; I didn’t know what to think or do about this. A flight attendant came over to assist us, however even they could not immediately settle the matter.
At last the flight attendant discovered what caused our problem: The airline sold more tickets than there were seats available for this particular flight because of which it became overbooked. Apparently, it wasn’t just me; many other passengers found themselves in similar situations too.
Unbelievable! More tickets than seats? That’s not right. I booked my ticket weeks ago, how was it my fault?
They offered me another seat, but it wasn’t what I wanted. My original seat was by the window, but the new one was between two people and I had to ask them to move.
I do understand that there are times when flights become overbooked but I think the airline should find a better way of dealing with such situations. They must give priority to passengers who made their bookings first rather than just anyone who gets into the plane before others.
At the end of it all, I arrived safely to my destination but the whole thing left me disgusted. The customer care shown by their staff made me feel as if they don’t care about us at all. It was very annoying and am praying that it doesn’t happen again in my life.
Generally speaking, I believe that airlines ought to improve on how they manage overbooked flights. There should be a just system through which such cases can be handled so that people do not end up being disappointed or inconvenienced while traveling by air. After all, we pay for these tickets and therefore deserve comfortable stress free journeys during our flights.
