[FabHK]

It is not a crazy take. Both the number of passengers arriving for a particular flight and the number of seats available on a given flight is basically stochastic. It is good and proper that airlines optimise for the maximum revenue (after some compensation for bumped passengers) and in particular the maximum number of people flown, even if that entails overbooking. (Without overbooking, more planes (with more empty seats) would have to fly to transport the same number of people - why would anyone want that?)

Furthermore, a flight might be cancelled for any number of legitimate reasons (weather, strike, technical problems, crew limitations, change in government rules, etc.). A flight is not like a car trip (even though the aviation industry has been so spectacularly successful in delivering safe and reliable flights that people often forget that).

It is foolish, in my view, to rely on making any given flight.