Overbooked passengers allowed to stand on 5-hour flight

By Ben Mutzabaugh
October 5, 2010

In case you missed this story from last week, it appears that Russian leisure carrier Tatarstan Airlines has beaten low-cost rival Ryanair to standing-room-only seating. It was not, however, by design.

The carrier -- operating for a tour group -- ran into the problem when it was forced to make an aircraft change on a full Sept. 24 flight from Antalya, Turkey, to Ekaterinburg, Russia. The change involved swapping out a 148-seat model Boeing 737 for one with just 142. That, as the math experts among you can tell, left six passengers without a seat on the sold out flight.

ABC News picks up the story, writing that "the tour company, according to local media reports, offered the passengers a choice: wait seven hours for another flight or stand for the five–hour flight back to Russia. All chose to stand, although they are now seeking $4,700 in compensation. The tour company offered about $200," ABC says.

As you might expect, allowing customers to fly without seats is considered to be a safety risk. Without a seat, customers could not wear seat belts to guard against unexpected turbulence nor did they have access to the oxygen masks or life vests at each seat.

"The adults had no choice but to fly standing for five hours," one passenger tells London's Daily Mail. "When the plane flew through turbulence, they went from standing to sitting in the aisle where naturally they had no safety belts."

The incident apparently came to light after the aggrieved passengers demanded additional compensation.

Evgenia Fedorova, a manager at the Anex-Tour company that booked many of the seats on the flight, defended the incident to the Daily Mail.

Fedorova tells the paper: "People had a choice -- to fly on that plane standing up, or wait seven hours for another plane. All the tourists decided to fly back despite uncomfortable conditions."

The Daily Mail's sources tell it that Russian aviation regulators are looking into the incident.

Either way, the news doesn't come as a total shock to one travel expert.

"This doesn't surprise me because I've heard of these horror stories on airlines in China 20 years ago," John DiScala, author of the Johnny Jet blog, tells ABC. "One thing is for sure, it makes the worst low-fare carriers in the U.S. look like five-star airlines."

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