On Saturday, about 50 passengers on Air India flight AI 731 from Kolkata to Guwahati were stranded after 194 tickets were booked in an aircraft with capacity of 144.
According to a report by The Times of India, an error in the reservation system led to the overbooking. Even after 144 tickets were booked, the system continued to accept more reservations, an Air India official informed.
Speaking to the newspaper, the official said,"It was an unprecedented situation. We do have 2-3% overbookings but on Saturday, it was 31% on the Kolkata-Guwahati flight. The passengers were justifiably furious and we didn't have any explanation to offer. An error seems to have occurred in the reservation system. Instead of displaying that the flight was full once 144 tickets had been sold, it continued to accept reservations. Thus, 194 passengers turned up for the flight."
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Later, the stranded passengers were accommodated in a hotel and were given tickets in two flights -- one scheduled to Guwahati on Sunday morning and the other to Bagdogra that was rescheduled to fly via Guwahati, the TOI report adds.
The percentage of overbooking was 10% previously, as the number of passengers failing to turn up for the flight were high.
It changed over a period of time with low-fare, non-refundable tickets being introduced. Subsequently, airlines were forced to recalibrate their booking software and limit the overbooking at 2-3%.
Last year, the Civil Aviation Ministry had proposed a cap on ticket cancellation charges, increased compensation for denied boarding and steep reduction in excess baggage fee levied by airlines.
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Suggesting a slew of passenger-centric measures, the Ministry had said airlines will have to refund all statutory taxes in case of flight cancellations.
Aviation regulator DGCA proposed that “under no circumstances the cancellation charges be more than the basic fare” and carriers cannot levy additional charge to process the refund.
