How and Why do airlines overbook flights?

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apuleuis

Yes airlines overbook, but its not what people make it out to be. The FAA requires that an airline ask for volunteers before it bumps someone. Someone that volunteers gets compensation (FAA requires it) Last year of the about 400,000 people bumped, only about 40,000 were involuntary. Plus not many people are being bumped. Delta had the most (of the bigger airlines) but that was only .188% of all passengers. (or 18.8 in 10,000 traveling) so your odds of being involuntarily bumped are about 2 in 10,000. Not hardly worth even talking about. Plus its not always the last one to check in, the gate agent decides it. (I would bump the person that has another option that would get them there close to the same time) If you are the crabby one, you could be the one bumped :)

todd

Its a risky practice by the airline. They use a system to determine it. Travel agents have nothing to do with it.

ok-- lets say on your flight from NYC to Los angels there are 200 seats on the plane. The airline does studies about how many people typically will no-show the flight. Meaning either not show up, or cancel at the last min. Lets say on average it is 10% of people no-show that flight. The airline figures they can sell up to 10% extra of the 200 seats..meaning an extra 20 seats. So on that flight they may sell 220 seats. Now often times, their plan backfires and everyone shows up. Ussualy what they do is offer free tickets to 20 people who will give up there seats. If no one voulenteers, they ussualy make the last 20 people give up their seats.

So bottom line if your flight is full-- get there even earlier then normal.

bourne3141592654

They do it on purpose. They do it because they know a small number of people will probably miss the flight so they book more people than it can actually hold so that when those people miss there flight there is someone else to take there place because every empty seat is lost money. The problem is that if all the people do make the flight now you don't have enough seats and that's when they ask people to wait for a later flight.

yinx

Airlines over book to compensate for passengers who don't turn up which leaves empty seats, so they can still fill a flight with the extra people. But if everyone decides to turn up they have to turn people down who for example check in late.

Kim J

They do it because on average a certain amount of people don't show up for their flight, change their flight at the last minute, or miss their flight. Overbooking is an attempt to take that into account so that the plane will always be full.
The only way for an airline to make money is to have almost 100% of their flights 100% full so they overbook to try to acheive this.

jeking

It's done intentionally. A certain percentage of people don't make their flight, for many reasons. The airlines count on this but don't want to leave any seats empty, so they over sell. The amount oversold will very as the airline tries to get all seats filled for each flight.

miss_west1

They overbook thinking that there will always be a few people who don't show up. It happens- people miss flights, book a return flight and only use it one way which is often cheaper than buying a one-way ticket. It is deliberate with some exceptions.

While it sucks if you're bumped due to overbooking, you are usually compensated with a free flight, hotel stay with meals or travel vouchers. Some flights ask for volunteers to give up their seat in favour of a later flight for things like travel vouchers and a hotel- it often works out for your benefit if you have flexible plans. If you're usually early for check-in, you can avoid being bumped due to overbooking.

lil sammy

I think they do it on purpose a bit. I asked a question here earlier today, because I booked a ticket that's non refundable, and I can't make the trip. so, I won't show up. I think this must happen a fair bit, and then the airlines can keep the plane full and profit the most.

Roger K

The airlines do it deliberately as they know historically how many people cancel or don't show up at the last minute. Those seats would then go empty and cost the airlines money. So they overbook expecting a certain number of passengers to "no show" and they already have other passengers to fill those seats and maximise their revenue.

angihorn2006

Airlines, like hotels, often sell more tickets than the plane will actually hold, especially in high travel periods. They do so based on a calculation of location, flight time, and time of year to determine the statistical average of the number of people who are likely to cancel their tickets for a certain flight. They use that historical data to then determine how many tickets, if any, to oversell. The problem has slightly worsened in recent years due to the fact that some travel websites make it possible for two people to buy the same seat if they log-on at the exact same time. This is rare but it does occassionally happen.

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