The rate of involuntary flight bumping at American Airlines and Southwest Airlines surged in the first six months of 2019, with the grounding of their Boeing 737 MAX fleets mostly to blame.
The Federal Aviation Administration reported American involuntary bumped 5,022 passengers, up from 678 in the same period last year.
Voluntary denials rose to 69,924 passengers compared to 28,409.
Southwest’s involuntarily denials more than doubled to 2,525 in the first half of 2019.
Citing comments from the two carriers the FAA said ‘the grounding of the 737 MAX aircraft has negatively impacted their involuntary denied boarding statistics.’
According to American spokesman Ross Feinstein, its ‘biggest challenge in the operation continues to be out of service aircraft. This reduces our ability to start the day right and to swap aircraft when needed as the day goes on,’ possibly alluding to its damaging labor dispute with mechanics.
Southwest doesn’t overbook flights but ‘there were times we had to down gauge a 175-seat MAX to our 143-seat 737-700 or try and accommodate customers on already-full flights.’
Southwest has removed Boeing Max aircarft from its schedules through January 5, 2020 and has been forced to suspend routes.
It recently said it would end operations at Newark Liberty International airport as a direct result of the grounding.
