Airline bumpings hit a record low

Airlines continued to reduce bumping during July, August and September, hitting a record low since the Transportation Department began tracking the statistics in 1995.

The dozen largest airlines reported involuntarily denying boarding to 2,745 passengers during the third quarter, which represented 0.15 passengers out of every 10,000, according to the department’s latest Air Travel Consumer Report.

That rate represented a sharp drop from nearly 12,000 bumped passengers, or 0.69 per 10,000, during the same quarter a year earlier, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

The previous record low for a quarter was 0.44 per 10,000 during the second quarter this year, according to the bureau. The airlines that bumped the largest shares of passengers were Spirit, Frontier and Southwest. The ones with the lowest rates were Delta, Virgin, JetBlue and United.

The improvement followed a worldwide firestorm of publicity about bumped passengers that began in April, when United had a 69-year-old passenger dragged off a full flight in Chicago.

United apologized repeatedly for the incident and reached a settlement with the passenger, David Dao.

Congress held hearings about the incident and threatened legislation. And airlines began offering more incentives for passengers on overbooked flights to voluntarily postpone their travel.

The number of airline travelers bumped hit a new low. GETTY IMAGES