Johannesburg — IN SA we're not used to checking in online before a flight. It may be the norm in the US or the UK, but here, where less than 10% of the population have online access and those who do are subjected to low bandwidth, the trend has not caught on.

Which is why it was particularly disingenuous for British Airways Comair, when it was bumping people off aircraft in Cape Town this weekend, to claim it was because they had not "checked in online".

To us simple folk, booking a ticket, paying for it and confirming it means you have a contract with an airline to get on a flight on a fixed date and hopefully at a fixed time. One arranges one's life around one's travel times, after all.

Maybe it's to do with high oil costs and falling consumer demand, but it would appear Comair is allowing its sales team to sell so many seats that no one is guaranteed a flight home and all contracts are able to be declared null and void at the whim of the airline.

If this is the case, Comair should consider change its name to Conair.

The Bottom Line is Edited By Edward West