Overbooking

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A overbooking ( English overbooking ) is the economic front, if more bookings , orders or reservations for a particular service will be made when the actual capacity or availability allows. In information and communication technology , we also speak of overbooking, for example when providing an agreed data transmission rate for a specific service .

General

Overbooking aims to fully utilize capacities. For a waiver of overbooking, however underutilization by empty permanent seats and hotel beds would create ( idle capacity costs ), for short-term cancellations , transfers and unannounced no-show ( English no-show ) mean that once sold services are available again suddenly, but by missing or too little overbooking cannot be occupied ( English spoilage ). If overbooking is allowed in this situation, full occupancy can be achieved. However, if the unexpected customers appear at the same time, there is an overbooking resulting in the rejection of customers ( English spill ).

The increased demand can not for technical reasons, such as in the production economy , in the short term by destocking or increasing the production to be satisfied. For example, a hotel only has a permissible room capacity that cannot be increased in the short term.

Overbooking in travel

Overbooking in the travel industry mainly affects air travel and hotels .

Flights

A flight overbooking is understood to mean that the air carrier allocates more seats for a certain flight by way of a binding seat booking than are available on this flight. In the case of normal flight prices, this is due to the short-term cancellations of flight bookings or the non-appearance of passengers, which lead to unoccupied seats. It is a common practice for most airlines to improve their occupancy rates. Around 5–30% of the total capacity is regularly released for overbooking.

Hotels

Hotels also accept more reservations than there are hotel rooms available per day. Based on experience, they too must expect short-term cancellations or guests unexpectedly not to appear. In order to avoid the resulting vacancy rate , overbooking is permitted.

Legal issues

Since overbookings are mostly made intentionally , they cannot be attributed to an error . Overbooking therefore represents a service disruption, because the flight or hotel guest concluded a legally valid contract when booking (with the travel confirmation) or reservation , which the airline or the hotel is not complying with. If the overbooking is part of a package tour , the tour operator must intervene, because the travel contract applies , which has a travel deficiency due to the overbooking in accordance with § 651i Paragraph 2 BGB . The travelers are alternative remedy - Dismissal - mitigation -, rescission , damages - or reimbursement of expenses (§ 651i para 3 BGB.). If, on the other hand, there is an individual trip, general contract law applies .

Regulation (EC) No. 261/2004 of February 11, 2004 , which also applies to flights within a package tour, has been in force in all EU member states since January 2005 . According to this, all airlines and tour operators who do not carry passengers must pay them the following compensation:

  • 250 euros for flights less than 1500 km or
  • 400 euros for flights within the Community over 1500 km and for all other flights between 1500 and 3500 km or
  • 600 euros on all other flights.

This compensation is due if the airline fails to find volunteers who do not want to take the flight. The airline usually tries to find this via loudspeaker announcement at check-in or at the gate. B. the following incentives are offered:

  • Cash payment or refund of the ticket price
  • Airline voucher
  • Catering at the airport
  • Rebooking to a later flight, possibly another airline or in a higher class of travel
  • If the replacement flight takes place the next day, an overnight stay in a hotel, possibly with meals

The total value of the incentives for the volunteers usually exceeds the above. Legal claim.

If a hotel is overbooked within a package tour, there is a travel deficiency which entitles the traveler to reduce the travel price in accordance with Section 651m BGB ( Frankfurt table ).

economic aspects

From an economic point of view, airlines and hotels have to weigh up the error costs for the elimination or compensation and their probability of occurrence with the additional income from the 100% occupancy. It is a typical problem of decision-making under risk . The reputation and customer satisfaction are other factors. On the other hand, a provider who overbooks can offer his product cheaper, which gives him a competitive advantage.

Overbooking of study places

Universities also always strive to actually fill all available study places and therefore work with overbooking. On the one hand, a possible rejection by students is countered because they, for example, accept the acceptance from another university. On the other hand, potential dropouts are included in the calculation in order to ensure long-term utilization of the study places. For example, some universities overbook the number of actual study places in medicine by a factor of 1.3 in order to avoid the problems described.

Overbooking in information and communication technology

Overbooking of services

General

When designing a service, it is assumed that not all service recipients (e.g. IT components) use the agreed service, which is why, in the worst case, the service is not available to some recipients or not in full. This results in economic advantages for the service provider through a structure that cannot be dimensioned for the maximum load or through the reduction of unused residual capacities of the resources used for the provision of services.

application areas

Overbooking is used in information and communication technology, for example, when providing an agreed data transmission rate for a specific service. Network connections in company networks , telephone networks , Internet access and other WAN networks are overbooked by providers (e.g. frame relay ) because the sum of the individual data transmission rates is higher than the data transmission rate of the backbone connection . At times when not all service recipients are simultaneously using the full data transmission rate, the active service recipients are provided with the full or a satisfactory speed. In communication networks there are characteristically peak times (e.g. in company networks in the morning at the start of work), during which there is a service restriction for the individual service users. The data transmission rate can be limited for individual or all users or the service is not available at all .

The computing power of IT systems is also overbooked , whereby the performance of the server or mainframe is not designed for the maximum possible load.

literature

  • Klaus Irmscher / Klaus Fähnrich (eds.): Communication in distributed systems (KiVS). Springer, Berlin et al. 2003, ISBN 3-540-00365-7 .
  • Manfred Lipp: Virtual private networks. VPN. Construction and security. Addison-Wesley, Munich et al. 2006, ISBN 3-8273-2252-9 .
  • Stefan Rehkopf: Revenue management concepts for order acceptance for customer-specific production. Using the example of the iron and steel producing industry. Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 3-8350-0587-1 ( Gabler Edition Wissenschaft ), (Also: Braunschweig, Techn. Univ., Diss., 2006).
  • Thomas Bieger : Service Management. Introduction to strategies and processes in services. 4th revised edition. Haupt, Bern et al. 2007, ISBN 978-3-8252-2974-0 ( UTB 2974).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden (ed.), Kompakt-Lexikon Management , 2013, p. 426
  2. ↑ Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden (ed.), Kompakt-Lexikon Management , 2013, p. 426
  3. ↑ Jens Peter Janköster: Passenger Rights in International Air Traffic , 2009, p. 342
  4. ↑ Holger Fröhlich: Service disruptions in air traffic , 2002, p. 132
  5. ↑ Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden (ed.), Kompakt-Lexikon Management , 2013, p. 426
  6. ↑ Barbara Sensen: Revenue Management in the Hotel , 2018, p. 58
  7. ↑ EU Air Passenger Rights Regulation
  8. ↑ Till Bartels: Follow Me: Why airlines (have to) overbook their flights. In: Stern.de. Retrieved January 13, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Armin Himmelrath: Despite admission restrictions: Thousands of university places are unused . In: Spiegel Online . January 30, 2015 ( spiegel.de [accessed August 29, 2019]).
  10. ↑ Allocation of university places: Overbooked and overwhelmed . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed August 29, 2019]).
  11. ↑ Allocation of university places: Overbooked and overwhelmed . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed August 29, 2019]).
  12. ↑ Complained first-time students in human medicine lose university places again. Retrieved August 29, 2019 .
  13. ^ VGH Munich: Admission to study human medicine. Decision v. 02/18/2019 - 7 CE 18.10065. Bavarian State Chancellery, August 14, 2018, accessed on August 29, 2019 .