[correnos]

The reasoning is that some people cancel their reservations, so if you have a good statistic for how often that happens you can overbook to take up the slack and still have a full plane. Airliner margins are pretty thin, so they jump at opportunities to avoid "waste" like this.

Scammy? Ehhh. People get way more than their money back for switching flights, which I consider enough to make it un-scammy. Others might reasonably disagree.

[CaptainZapp]

To be more accurate: It's less about cancelled reservations, but mostly about no-shows.

People buying full-fare tickets don't incur a penalty if they just don't show up for the flight. Most tickets, nowadays are anyway non-cancellable (except, sometimes for a hefty fee) and non-refundable.

At times the flight from Tel Aviv to Zurich could be overbooked by as muchas 60 seats. I know this because my sister worked at (now defunct) Swissair.

Personally I don't feel this to be a scammy concept, provided that the airline

- Rebooks you onto the next available flight. If necessary with a competitor and

- Compensates fairly and in cash and coughs up for hotel acommodation, transportation and food if necessary

[rhino369]

Plus even non-cancellable tickets can be moved for ~150 dollar fee. And most airlines will let you fly standby if you arrive too late for your flight, at no cost.

If they didn't do overbooking, then missing your flight is a huge opportunity cost of them. They wouldn't be so quick to let you just move it last minute or fly standby.

The real problem with that united PR debacle was that the passenger was roughed up by security. But overbooking is probably a positive for flyers.

[Sleeep]

The United flight wasn't even overbooked either, all paying passengers had a seat. They booted paying passengers for crew members.

IMO the correct thing to do is do everything they can do to find alternative arrangements for crew member transportation in that case. I think paying customers should be the priority.

Another mistake made was allowing the passenger to board and then removing him. Bumped passengers should not be allowed to board in the first place.

[CaptainZapp]

  They booted paying passengers for crew members.

They argued that this would result into a cancelled flight the next morning if they wouldn't have flown the crew, since no crew would be available. This may, or may not be the case. But if it really was that urgent they could have chartered a private plance for the crew. At ~300 miles even renting a car may have been feasible (this may have cut into the mandatory rest period of the crew, though).

  Another mistake made was allowing the passenger to board and then removing him

Precisely that! You just can't have paying passengers board a plane to then kick them out. If the flight is really oversold you should find volounteers at the gate and - if necessary - auction the bumping off. If nobody wants to be bumped for 800$ then raise the price. It's not my impression that they really did that. They just selected four passengers, stormed the plane and essentially told them "off!" When Dr. Dao refused (which I can understand, if you have patients potentially waiting for month to get to see the doctor) they gave him the "Nice face, would be a shame if something happens to it" treatment.

Oh, and offering the amount in cash and not in some vouchers, which probably come with so much fine print and restrictions to be virtually useless would probably help too.

[Sleeep]

Right, I think that the right thing to do was either pay to book the crew members with another airline (or private plane) or rent them a car. People have also said hiring a limo to transport that distance cost about a thousand, I don't know if that is true or not though, I've never hired a limo.

Thing is, I'm not sure those arrangements were actually considered by United though, they seem very short sided in general.

I didn't really consider resting times might be an issue though.

The important part is don't board a passenger THEN kick them off. If they are bumped, they shouldn't ever board.

[will_hughes]

So why not sell standby tickets instead once you reach 'full'?

[bsder]

Because your last minute business traveler who is paying a big chunk of cash doesn't want standby.

In reality, there is no problem to manage here. You simply wind the incentives up until people move.

The "problem" is an airline too cheap to wind the incentives up far enough to get people to give up their seat voluntarily.

[will_hughes]

> Because your last minute business traveler who is paying a big chunk of cash doesn't want standby.

So what I'm hearing is that they'd rather be lied to at the airport, than at the time they're buying the ticket.

If you buy a ticket, then there should be no reason for the airline to deny you boarding (excepting safety issues). This is how every other service works.

If I turn up and it turns out so did everyone else who bought a ticket, then the airline should not be bullshitting about overbooking.

[thomasahle]

It seems a reasonable way to make rules for this would be to only allow airlines to kick off people who chooses so voluntarily.

[peteretep]

... and in the vast majority of cases, that's exactly what happens. Involuntary bumps are rare.

[URSpider94]

Yes -- 0.007 percent of passengers, or about 70 ppm.

[opo]

That sounds like a very small number, but that equates to about 126 people per day in the US alone. For some this might have been an inconvenience, but for others might be closer to a catastrophe depending on the reasons for their travel.

http://www.tvlon.com/news/how-many-people-get-involuntarily-...

[dwighttk]

In the US there is also a limit on the amount they can offer of 400% of the ticket price.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/united-bump-overbooking-...

[gruturo]

No, that only limits how up they HAVE to go - past that they have no obligation. If you get denied boarding and they have not reached the 400% / $1350 offer, you have legal recourse.

They are absolutely not forbidden from offering more if they choose to - this is actually even explicitly mentioned in the regulations. The legalese is not super easy to parse, but this link makes a decent attempt at explaining it: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/4/11/1652290/-The-Wide...

Edit: The Department of Transportation's own official website also explains it quite clearly here: (https://cms.dot.gov/airconsumer/faq)

Q: Is the amount an airline must offer involuntarily bumped passengers arriving on a substitute flight over 2 hours after their original flight still 400% of the one-way fare, for a maximum of $1,350?

A: Yes, an airline must offer 400% of the one-way fare up to $1350 to involuntarily bumped passengers arriving on a substitute flight over two hours after the planned arrival time of their original domestic flight. Airlines are free to offer involuntarily bumped passengers more money than required.

[dwighttk]

oh, good to know (and makes more sense)

[michaelt]

That's only for passengers bumped involuntarily. If the passenger agrees to be bumped - i.e. it's not involuntary - the compensation can be any amount.

The 400% minimum compensation only applies if the airline chooses not to offer enough for anyone to volunteer.

[Asooka]

Rather, allow people to buy "don't-kick-me" tickets for a bigger price and once the plane has been filled with don't-kick-mes, notify all other ticket holders that they're being bumped to a later flight. If any don't-kick-mes don't show, the waste is covered by the increased price.

[exclusiv]

But there is really no waste when they sell out 100% of the seats. If people no-show the seat is paid for.

The airlines are trying to make it sounds like they are just trying to reach 100% capacity but in reality they are trying to arbitrage the fact that a few people buy non-refundable tickets and don't show up.