What to do about noshows?

[offshore171]

Specifically, no shows who have checked in, have boarding passes and have checked luggage on the aircraft. Then fail to board.

So right now QF2 - a fully loaded a380 with maybe 450 pax on board - is sitting at the gate in Singapore and it’s now almost an hour late.

Boarding was very quick and smooth, right on time. But we have had 2 transit passengers from the London sector fail to return to the plane. However their 4 bags are loaded and now need to be located and removed.

Captain has been on the PA several times. Apparently the pallet they are looking for is 9 deep in the cargo hold!


Aside from inconvenience to 500 pax, there must be other direct costs to the airline.

What should they do about this?
Hit up the no shows for cost recovery?
Passenger bans?

 

[marki]

So QF2 - a fully loaded a380 with maybe 450 pax on board - is sitting at the gate in Singapore and it’s now almost an hour late.

Boarding was very quick and smooth, right on time. But we have had 2 transit passengers from the London sector fail to return to the plane. However their 4 bags are loaded and now need to be located and removed.

Captain has been on the PA several times. Apparently the pallet they are looking for is 9 deep in the cargo hold!


Aside from inconvenience to 500 pax, there must be other direct costs to the airline.

What should they do about this?
Hit up the no shows for cost recovery?
Passenger bans?

Insurance would need to cover it. Unless complete negligence. They still have to remove luggage in either case. Yep rock and a hard palce.

 

[offshore171]

We’ve now been onboard for 2 hours and still on the ground.

Right now I think the airline should place bans on pax who do this. It really does cause chaos.

Exceptions for genuine emergencies such as a pax having some medical episode during the layover.

But for those that get on the drink at an airport bar and fail to re-board, no sympathy. And send them a bill too.

There’s probably 20 odd crew on the plane that need another 2 hours pay. And the ground staff who had to dig out the bags for offload.

People will misconnect in sydney
Prearranged ground transport will be put out.

It may even delay tomorrow’s sector being flown by this aircraft.

 

[Mattg]

I wonder where these people went? Did they intend to continue to SYD and get lost in the airport, or??

 

[offshore171]

I wonder where these people went? Did they intend to continue to SYD and get lost in the airport, or??

All good questions. I understand the “getting drunk” scenario is one of the more common causes.

I’d love to hear some theories on some of the other reasons.

Medical episodes I guess, but it would be a remarkable coincidence to arise exactly during a 2 hour layover.

Another one is maybe smokers, just can’t face another 9 hours without a fix after doing 13 hours already from London? But then leaving 4 suitcases on the plane. Wow.

Put them on a flight to Siberia.

 

[Archipelago]

Previous experience with an SQ flight from SIN to PER (although not recently)

Fully boarded, NEARLY fully boarded, and on time - but delayed due to no-show pax.

Flight crew announced offloading of baggage, we could see the equipment and crew rock up outside. Cue sounds of cargo doors clunking open and lifts/ramps being put in to action

Further announcement that some pax had been found. Some bags to be onloaded again.
Doors re-opened, pax did the walk of shame onboard. All carrying a LOT of duty free bags and shopping.
They went shopping. SHOPPING.

Evil stares from the already seated pax - I recall a sea of heads turning in unison to glare as the late pax walked down the aisles.

 

[offshore171]

Previous experience with an SQ flight from SIN to PER (although not recently)

Doors re-opened, pax did the walk of shame onboard. All carrying a LOT of duty free bags and shopping.
They went shopping. SHOPPING

Maybe Singapore airport just has too many temptations for transit pax with all the shops and bars

Update: all 4 bags now removed.

Seems like this is an issue that is way overdue for a crackdown

 

[Scarlett]

@Archipelago, I wouldn’t have thought bags would be placed back onboard once offloaded. Those people should consider themselves very lucky.

I saw this happening yesterday at KIN airport. Whilst waiting for boarding to start I was standing next to an AA boarding gate for a flight to MIA (B737). The gate agents were chasing and paging 3 failed to board pax (or groups of pax). One lady turned up almost straight away. Another lady then turned up about two minutes later looking very sheepish. The third name, not seen. The agents were all yelling and had started getting the bags off, as one guy went off down the pier calling out for the final pax. One bag was located and taken off after about three minutes, then the other eventually taken off another couple of minutes later. Pax never turned up.

KIN is not that big an airport or terminal and there aren’t that many flights leaving at any particular time, so no idea how a pax could get lost between security, departure hall and gate??? (they were supposed to be connecting from MIA-JFK as well)

The only thing I could think of was that the flight was scheduled for 1515 departure or close to that. Maybe the pax was one of those people who saw 15xx and had 5pm in their mind and was just sitting fat, dumb and happy in the departure hall ignoring everything as ‘their’ flight was still a couple of hours away.


AA1400 off to MIA minus one failed to board pax!

Edit: I’ll also note that departure was scheduled for 1520 and I took this photo at 1524, so AA staff were definitely on the ball.

 

[luxury-lizard]

Here's an example - someone a know fell asleep in the KF lounge in SIN waiting for the midnight fight to SYD (after a very busy week at work). She did not hear her name being paged BUT she was pretty much the last person in the lounge and SQ should have known she was in the lounge as they check (scan?) your boarding pass on entry. (And NO, alcohol was not a factor). When she woke up and realised she had missed the flight the SQ staff were very synthetic - let her sleep overnight in the lounge and put her on the first flight in the morning. I always wondered why the lounge staff did not at least look around the lounge ....

 

[Forg]

Worse is when you’re >1hr late leaving on a long-haul flight due to what at the time you weren’t aware was a no-show, there’s one single seat empty within eyesight & it’s the one next to you … and the guy actually turns up & your excited hope to have a seat empty next to you is dashed!

 

[scopedope]

Worse is when you’re >1hr late leaving on a long-haul flight due to what at the time you weren’t aware was a no-show, there’s one single seat empty within eyesight & it’s the one next to you … and the guy actually turns up & your excited hope to have a seat empty next to you is dashed!

This reminds me of a funny story from last year.

Flying Y on an A380 and in the window seat. I had dutifully checked ExpertFlyer in the airbridge and confirmed the middle seat was empty and blocked (hopefully thanks to my WP shadow) - extremely lucky as only two empty seats on the aircraft. The individual in the aisle seat proceeded to go on an acid-tongued, unprompted, aggressive rant towards me to not get excited about the empty middle seat and that someone is probably running late and holding up the flight

 

[Forg]

This reminds me of a funny story from last year.

Flying Y on an A380 and in the window seat. I had dutifully checked ExpertFlyer in the airbridge and confirmed the middle seat was empty and blocked (hopefully thanks to my WP shadow) - extremely lucky as only two empty seats on the aircraft. The individual in the aisle seat proceeded to go on an acid-tongued, unprompted, aggressive rant towards me to not get excited about the empty middle seat and that someone is probably running late and holding up the flight

Is that story in Britannica under the heading ‘weird’?

I mean, said individual is just as de-comfortabled by someone turning-up and it’s not like it’s your fault, so how can they be PO’d with YOU for that?! In fact, can I hire you to sit in window-seats when I’m in the aisle-seat so your shadow can always sit between us? Hey your shadow doesn’t want to have long chats with strangers on long-haul flights do they … ?

 

[muppet]

We’ve now been onboard for 2 hours and still on the ground.

Right now I think the airline should place bans on pax who do this. It really does cause chaos.

Exceptions for genuine emergencies such as a pax having some medical episode during the layover.

But for those that get on the drink at an airport bar and fail to re-board, no sympathy. And send them a bill too.

There’s probably 20 odd crew on the plane that need another 2 hours pay. And the ground staff who had to dig out the bags for offload.

People will misconnect in sydney
Prearranged ground transport will be put out.

It may even delay tomorrow’s sector being flown by this aircraft.

I get you’re angry but things happen. Most people are not trying to throw away thousands of dollars by missing an international connection.

As for making the pax pay, pax can’t charge airlines for their consequential losses due to airline incompetence/negligence. Why should airlines be able to charge pax?

 

[flyingsal]

Singapore to Paris a few years ago. Young couple with toddler already at the gate. Child was feverish and vomiting, floppy and listless. Medics assessed and hauled off for treatment. Did not board. Flight only slightly delayed.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

i wonder if the pax got confused and thought they had to disembark in SIN and clear customs or something… like the USA? Or perhaps they thought they had a stopover in SIN, and didn’t realise they didn’t? (they could have been at the carousel waiting for their bags!)

It seems unlikely pax flying Qantas Y would need to go to the bar… they have generous and free alcohol on board. Maybe they got lost or hadn’t re-set their time to local time?,

4 bags for two pax might suggest however they had some sort of status, so might be experienced? Strange.

Smoking? There’s a smoking area right by the QF departure gate for the a380 IIRC. So even if trying to get a last one in, they’d only be 5 mins late, not a no-show.

It might have been an urgent medical requiring a trip to hospital, and perhaps someone said ‘well let the airline know’, but didn’t.

 

[Cynicor]

I saw for the first time an online booking portal offering throwaway ticketing. It was a one way Japan to Colombo and had an extra leg to somewhere in India.

It’s unlikely but if someone wasn’t quite thinking right, esp on a shorter layover like 2 hours, that you could exit immigration and spend time waiting for bags that never show, that you checked in accidentally.

Would be a few “ifs” in there, so I suspect that drunkenness and midnight sleeping makes up 95% of missed flights.

 

[offshore171]

It seems unlikely pax flying Qantas Y would need to go to the bar… they have generous and free alcohol on board.

It’s how some travellers kill a couple of hours between flights. Find a bar and get on it. Not uncommon.

Smoking? There’s a smoking area right by the QF departure gate for the a380 IIRC. So even if trying to get a last one in, they’d only be 5 mins late, not a no-show.

Yeah can probably rule this one out for Singapore. Not all airports offer this though.

 

[flyingfan]

i wonder if the pax got confused and thought they had to disembark in SIN and clear customs or something… like the USA? Or perhaps they thought they had a stopover in SIN, and didn’t realise they didn’t? (they could have been at the carousel waiting for their bags!)

You're very forgiving It took me a while to think this might be the case, my first thoughts were these pax were just selfish dawdlers (like those keeping cruise ships waiting for them to amble back - the dock running videos can be amusing!).

There've been a couple of times I had connecting flights and wasn't sure I had to get bags and re-check in again. It's in the airline's interests (when it's the same airline) to make this as clear as possible, particularly if you don't have to, to avoid unnecessary delays. I suppose there's bound to be some who don't understand or remember, no matter how clear the instructions are.

In terms of 'punishment' I think forfeiting the ticket (ie. pax have to pay for a new one) is reasonable, unless it was clearly out of pax control, such as sudden illness. IMHO other cost recovery wouldn't fly (pun not intended), but if some pax are repeat offenders, it could be kept on file, however it'd be a big leap to ban them. I don't know what else could be done, keep them on probation by chaining them to the departure gate?!

Given how often I hear these ominous fail to board and 'offloading procedures have commenced' announcements, I'm very keen to hear stories of why people can check in, including when it's not a multi-sector journey, and somehow not make it to the gate. I get with all these people flying there'll be medical emergencies but surely that's a small percentage.

 

[luxury-lizard]

I gave an example above - but (something) I have seen - passenger not able to speak/understand English getting totally confused about where to go to board connecting flight. A saw a non-English speaker on an airport bus thinking it was taking him to a different terminal when in fact it was going to the city.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

You're very forgiving It took me a while to think this might be the case, my first thoughts were these pax were just selfish dawdlers (like those keeping cruise ships waiting for them to amble back - the dock running videos can be amusing!).

There've been a couple of times I had connecting flights and wasn't sure I had to get bags and re-check in again. It's in the airline's interests (when it's the same airline) to make this as clear as possible, particularly if you don't have to, to avoid unnecessary delays. I suppose there's bound to be some who don't understand or remember, no matter how clear the instructions are.

In terms of 'punishment' I think forfeiting the ticket (ie. pax have to pay for a new one) is reasonable, unless it was clearly out of pax control, such as sudden illness. IMHO other cost recovery wouldn't fly (pun not intended), but if some pax are repeat offenders, it could be kept on file, however it'd be a big leap to ban them. I don't know what else could be done, keep them on probation by chaining them to the departure gate?!

Given how often I hear these ominous fail to board and 'offloading procedures have commenced' announcements, I'm very keen to hear stories of why people can check in, including when it's not a multi-sector journey, and somehow not make it to the gate. I get with all these people flying there'll be medical emergencies but surely that's a small percentage.

offshore171 simply asked for other possible reasons why someone wouod miss their connecting flight at SIN.

Not hard to come up with reasons, and we probably shouldn’t always think of the worst case first. It might well have been they were in a bar drinking. It might be they fell asleep, but at SIN at that time of night it’s not especially easy? More so given you barely have time to get off the plane in ecinomy before you need to head back again.

Another possibility I suppose is that they were waiting for showers? There can be a wait either in the QF lounge, or in the paid lounges. Maybe time got away.

Maybe they thought the departure time was the boarding time, and came back too late?

But 4 bags seems to indicate they must have had some status…