According to that chart, you have less than a 1 in 10,000 chance of getting involuntarily bumped. Not condoning how this thing played out but this guy was of very questionable character to start with.

Not that airport securty would have known but: Doctor dragged off flight was convicted of trading drugs for sex

It should not have been relevant to the actions taken. But it will likely lessen his leverage when it comes time to sue. He'll still get a nice settlement.

I knew he was a questionable character the second he didn't get up and walk off the plane when asked.

The key word is "involuntarily." In 30+ years of regular flying (American Platinum), I've only seen it happen twice.

My roommates and I overbooked every party we ever had at Ohio University.

Some policies we followed:
-We ALWAYS denied entry at the gate rather than trying to kick people out once they had already boarded.
-We NEVER called the police if people got unruly, although the police did sometimes show up at the gate unannounced.
-Free in-flight beverages.

Despite record-high customer satisfaction levels, local regulators were constantly enacting legislation aimed at slowing our growth. Knowing our customers did not like local regulators, we countered with a number of organic marketing campaigns on social media. Sensing government overreach, our customers rallied behind our message and our popularity grew tenfold.

Two things I don't understand: 1. Overbooking. The airlines claim that the practices is done to provide insurance against the likelihood that some travelers will simply not show up, which I know happens. However, if I don't show up for a flight, it still costs me the full fare. I pay for my fare when I make reservations, as I assume, most people do. The airline will ding my credit card whether or not I "show up." If that's the case, then a no-show would still be revenue generating. If so, why would the airline need to overbook? 2. I don't think I have ever seen passengers asked to leave the plane for overbooking. In my experience, this is always done at the gate. No one gets on until all seat assignments are final. What caused the flight to be boarded and only then require the removal of four passengers? That's the real crux of the problem, as I see it.

I think standby is a totally difference situation. I used to fly military standby when I was on active duty in the Navy. You understood that you would only get a seat (at a greatly reduced price) if there was an available seat after all regular paying customers had boarded. Regular standby is similar, without the discount I would assume.

In my experience there are very few times that ticket costs are refundable, unless it is many days prior to the flight. The bottom line, IMHO, is that the airlines have no problem getting revenue from a no-show and then placing a new paying customer in the same seat. It's kind of "double booking."

Insurance companies have done this kind of double-billing thing for years. They adjust rates so that they are almost assured of making a profit on each individual insured, instead of making a smaller, but still substantial, profit on the entire population of those insured.

The remedy for both airlines and the insurance industry is the development of some good laws to prevent gouging of this sort, sort like usury laws in the banking industry.

Not in my experience. Agree with OCF that "standby" is a different animal because the gate agent will not know who has "shown up" until the boarding process happens. But in an oversold situation, it's the reverse. The gate agent knows there aren't enough seats. When that happens, again in my experience, the sorting out happens at the gate, not on the airplane. That also seems like common sense.

Ding ding ding. Pretty much the reason airlines do anything...

It's all about filling empty seats... on other flights. By overbooking a high demand flight, usually with more expensive tickets, they're essentially selling higher priced tickets to a low-demand flight because volunteers will end up on those previously half full flights. They like overflow because they can channel it to empty seats elsewhere. How well this works after all the comps are accounted for I'm not sure.

I'm not sure about that OCF. If a policy is specifically underwritten, surely it's priced at what the insurance company thinks will be a profitable price.


Now under Obamacare, I gather that there's not specific case underwriting. This must be true because the applications are simple--to apply, one doesn't answer any health status questions, right? Isn't that the point of it? So, insurers underwrite a class of business or a policy type instead of individual cases. Again, this is why everyone must ...as in requirements to pay taxes, wear seatbelts, etc...be made to be covered, must pay for coverage--so coverage is affordable for all. (It's truly impressive that Repubs won't accede to this and, yet, think that they can put in a viable national healthcare plan.)

Also, from an economic standpoint, there's got to be little diff between making a profit on an entire book of business vs. making a profit on 95% of the components of that book.