[lightbyte]

That's a horrible reason in my opinion. What other industry could get away with doing this? If someone sold 105% capacity for a concert or sports game and just told the last 5% who arrived "sorry, no more room" people would be extremely upset.

[tunap]

The Telecoms have been selling > capacity for... ever(?). When a major event occurs & everyone picks up a phone to call in/out you get "all circuits are busy". Ever notice the hit to your inet speeds on holidays when all your neighborhood is home & idle?

On one hand, infrastructure costs for idle capacity would/could become cost prohibitive. On the other hand, the provider should be held aaccountable for their failing to provide reasonable uptime/service.

[mthoms]

That's not really a fair analogy. It's difficult (or impossible) to predict major events like terrorist attacks or weather phenomena that cause phone circuits to overload. And when these events occur, telecom companies lose money.

But flights fill up every day. When they do, airlines maximize profit.

[tunap]

Agreed, major phenomena are exceptions to the norm, did not intend to convey any judgement on the practice. Those same phenomena affect airlines too. In fact, weather delays had hampered United's ops leading up to the ejection event in the news. My point was airlines are not the only ones who sell > capacity.

[rbritton]

Hotels do it routinely. I've personally been moved to another hotel because we arrived later than enough of the checkins before us.

[colmvp]

Don't hotels do the same thing too?