Why Do Airplanes OverBook Their Flights?
Airlines typically overbook flights because they know that a certain amount of people won’t show up for the flight. Typically, there is a system of yield management that is used to determine, for a given flight, how many people will not show up, which will allow them to oversell a flight by that many seats. When it works, as many people will fail to show up as the number of oversold seats. When it doesn’t work out, though, and more people show up than there are seats available, the airline must decide who doesn’t fly. Typically, volunteers will be solicited first (the typical “we’ll give you a voucher to take the next flight” routine.) When there aren’t enough volunteers, then the airline must involuntarily bump people from the flight. This can be done in a number of ways, including selecting passengers based on their elite status in the frequent flier program (or lack thereof), when they checked in, whether they already have a seat assignment, or what their further travel plans on tha
