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Are Airlines Intentionally Overbooking Their Flights? (popularmechanics.com)
"if you sell one seat to two different people, and only one of them shows up, you get extra money," explains an article in Popular Mechanics shared by schwit1. Citing a recent TED-Ed video, they argue that the airlines' strategy for booking flights "makes perfect sense, just not for you."
The most frustrating part? This math could be tuned to ensure the maximum number of tickets sold with a near zero percent chance too many people show up. Instead, the most profitable solutions often involve a decent chance a few passengers getting screwed, because the extra ticket sales outweigh having to put someone up in a hotel now and then.
No shit. This has been standard practice in any type of business that makes bookings for anything for many decades, and it isn't a secret. Are people really this dumb? A TED talk? Really? Beginning to think cavemen were more advanced than 'educated' people today. As stated: YES
Oh, I understand why airlines overbook. But I just can't grasp why a significant number of people who've paid good money for airline tickets simply don't show up. If I spend several hundred dollars on something, I'm going to make sure I get what I paid for...
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That doesn't make any sense. Why were they repeatedly overbooking flights by such a huge amount when someone at an information disadvantage was able to notice a pattern and exploit it for such a huge profit?
Not only that, but if a flight was over 100% booked 35 times in a row, the airline would either raise the ticket prices on that flight, or add extra flights to the route. The story makes no sense, and I don't believe it.
Careful what you wish for. If it were illegal to sell one seat to two different people, yes your flight would never be overbooked. But if you missed your flight, you wouldn't be able to get a refund or rebook. The airline would say tough - by law that was your seat and only your seat. Once you bought it, by law they weren't allowed to sell it to anyone else. So once you bought it it was yours period. If you missed the plane, that's not their problem. If you want to get to your destination, you'll have to buy another ticket.
I like the current system. The airlines usually have enough people overbooked or on standby that they don't lose money when you miss your flight, and they extend the favor to you by rebooking you on a later flight at no extra charge. No need to buy a new ticket. And usually there are enough volunteers willing to be bumped that a forced bump is very rare.
The quote in TFS has it backwards - you arrive at the conclusion that overbooking is bad if you only consider what makes perfect sense for the customer, and completely ignore what makes sense for the airline. If you forcibly implement a system that costs the airlines more money, well they have to make that money up somewhere. In this case it would be from the wallets of passengers who miss their flight. The current system represents a good compromise where the desires of both the airlines (to have full flights) and passengers (to be allowed to rebook without penalty or with minimal penalty if they miss a flight) are taken into account.