Why do airlines overbook their flights

Obviously, that puts airlines in an interesting position. Sometimes too many people turn up to a flight. Last year, 46, travelers were involuntarily bumped from flights. The thing is, when you book a flight, you book a plane ticket from, say, New York to San Francisco. You do usually choose which plane you want to get on. You are buying a journey from one city to another. If you are coming in from London and you miss your connection in New York, for example, the airline will usually re-book you onto a different flight without extra charge.

The same usually happens if you arrive 10 minutes late because of traffic. If you have a flexible ticket, you can also switch your ticket from one flight to another, sometimes at very late notice. It seems counterintuitive.

They do this to ensure a full plane when it comes to take-off. Empty seats are a financial drain on airlines. British Airways admits to overselling , seats in a single year, leading to 24, passengers having to be bumped from flights. The simple answer to why airlines overbook is to maximize profit. Airlines want to avoid empty seats at all costs, and overselling tickets is a great way to do just that. The logic is understandable considering the statistical likelihood of all passengers with a valid ticket checking in on time is less than 1 in 10, There are many reasons why an airline oversells tickets.

Another reason tickets are oversold is because airlines expect a percentage of people to be coming from connecting flights—flights that could very possibly be delayed or canceled.

A minute delay on the first flight could be the difference between boarding and not boarding the connecting flight in many cases. Yes, overbooking is entirely legal. In fact, if overbooking were to be made illegal, the price of air travel tickets would likely increase. Overbooking helps airlines guarantee their planes will be filled to capacity, allowing them to keep tickets cheap. Overbooking can go wrong, however, when passengers refuse to be bumped.

While most airlines aim to solve overbooking issues before passengers begin to board, there are cases where passengers must be removed from flights. This was the case on a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Louisville. An old man was forcibly removed from the flight in front of the remaining passengers.

A portion of airfares sold on a flight come with the option to switch flights or cancel with little or no penalty. These are often purchased by business travellers that require flexibility to change their plans or by consumers when the lowest fares are sold out.

There are usually a portion of travellers that do not show up for their flights, either because they simply miss it or because their ticket can be applied to another flight or refunded altogether.

They can predict with fairly good accuracy how many travellers will not show up on the 5pm Friday flight from Chicago to Toronto, and how many will show up earlier wanting to go home for the weekend after business was done.