Travel: He Who Got Bumped

Like most airline passengers, Los Angeles Lawyer Charles E. Wills shuffled patiently through the electronic bureaucracy of reservations, confirmations and reconfirmations with the blind faith that when the right time came, he would be aboard the right plane. But on Oct. 11, 1959, when he showed up at St. Louis' airport an hour before he was scheduled to take off for Los Angeles on TWA's Flight 77, he was told that his seat in the tourist-class section of the plane had been given to a ticket-holding fellow traveler—from first class.

TWA, following a practice indulged in by most airlines, had "overbooked" the flight, counting on enough cancellations at the last minute to squeeze everybody aboard. But there were fewer no-shows than expected, and Flight 77 was in trouble. Wills finally got to Los Angeles on another airline, 4½ hours late.

Wills decided to sue, acted as his own attorney in the case. Says Wills: "I'm a guy who can be pushed sideways, but not backwards. What made me mad was the idea of this fellow jerking the ticket out of my hand." At the trial, he pointed out that his tourist reservation was made prior to the first-class reservation of the passenger for whom he was bumped and contended that he, a tourist-class passenger, had been discriminated against.

Los Angeles Federal District Judge William C. Mathes last week ruled that TWA will have to pay Wills $5,001.54. The $5,000 was an "award of exemplary damages," as a warning and example to the rest of the industry; the $1.54 was for a long-distance phone call Wills made to his wife to tell her he would be getting home late.

Taking TWA to task for overbooking, Judge Mathes cited 12,166 "oversales" in TWA domestic flights between July and December 1959 that resulted in 4,129 bumpings. But airlines have their problems. Experience has shown that 10% of those who reserve space two weeks before a flight fail to show at flight time, 5% of those with one-week reservations. The carriers are left with empty seats that they might have sold, and the no-shows demand (and get) their money back. The U.S.'s eleven major airlines recently reached agreement on a new policy: in the future, no-shows who do not cancel their reservations before flight time will not be refunded the full price of their ticket—the penalty will be about 50% of the fare up to a maximum of $50. If CAB approves, the new rule will go into effect March 1.