
Ask HN: Why were names of other passengers appearing in my flight details? - scottmcdot
I am assuming that Google can usually provide live flight information by being able to read my flight tickets being sent to my Gmail. However, when I searched my flight number in Google, I could see the names of two other passengers. I have never met these people and their emails are not in my Gmail. Is this supposed to happen?<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;yb8c9Ks
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nachi
This is most definitely a bug on Google's side in parsing the passenger names
out of the booking email from Germanwings.

I experienced something similar, Google thought that the Geschäftfuhrung
(management) at the bottom of the booking email were my co-passengers:

[http://i.imgur.com/I8V4ZQN.png](http://i.imgur.com/I8V4ZQN.png) (In this
case, Thomas Lindner and Dr. Jochen Wallisch)

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notahacker
I think you've probably nailed it.

Looking at the mostly-redacted names OP's screenshot I suspect the additional
"passengers" Google's email has picked up are actually Dr Axel Schmidt and
Oliver Wagner from Germanwings' executive board? Am I right?

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scottmcdot
Yes you are right! I presumed it was this guy [0]. Nice to have put this to
bed.

[0] [http://www.neuro.univie.ac.at/](http://www.neuro.univie.ac.at/)

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rdancer
It's a software bug. If you buy multiple seats on a single ticket, those other
names would be the other people travelling with you -- that's why it's
formatted correctly. However, the programming logic deciding whether those
people are on the same ticket must've gotten screwed.

Since you're probably on the plane at the moment, have you found out if those
people are with you on the plane?

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scottmcdot
It was a couple of weeks' ago. I Googled the Dr's name and he is a real person
from Vienna, so it's definitely possible he was on the plane.

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dragonbonheur
Airlines overbook tickets, apparently...

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jdimov9
Routinely, in fact, as a matter of BaU.

But that probably doesn't explain the issue with the names - most likely a
software bug.

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artmageddon
Can confirm - a very close friend of mine who is a flight attendant on JetBlue
who has helped me out with numerous flights using his buddy passes, gave me
insight into this. Basically, airlines are allowed to oversell because
historically, a number of people will miss flights by differing margins, and
this helps recover potential losses for those who do miss their flights. Works
great when people normally miss their flights, but not so much when everyone
shows up.

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cjrp
I never understood this explanation; if you miss your flight, do you get a
refund? If not, the airline are still getting paid so shouldn't be booking the
same seat twice.

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jfim
You could miss your flight because you've been stuck in TSA's checkpoints or
because of a delayed prior flights; in both cases, the airline has to rebook
you onto a later flight, so you're still getting to your destination and still
take up a seat in a plane.

