AIR BOOKINGS
SIR,—Mr. David Butler's letter confirms my view that something is very much wrong with the practice in this matter.
On a recent BEA flight from Nice to London 1 had taken the precaution of booking, confirming and having tickets endorsed for a particular flight for a party of three. We had arrived at Mee Airport two hours before take-off time and were having lunch there when the loudspeaker requested us to report for the usual formalities. There was, at the outside, ten minutes' delay in paying the bill and assembling our luggage. On reporting at the desk, with still a full twenty minutes before take-off, we were told that our seats had been disposed of to others, and that we could travel by a later plane. It happened to be important to us to travel on the plane on wh'ch we had booked, and, since the later plane had some fifteen vacant scats, I could not help wondering why those to whom our seats had been given and who, on the officials' own admission, had not booked for that flight, could not have been accommodated on the later plane.
One was left with the uneasy feeling that our seats had been disposed of with a haste that seemed almost indecent.—Yours faithfully,
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