While I generally agree -- Southwest is more of a budget airline, so it may not be subject to the same magnitude of loss from people missing/skipping their flig

While I generally agree -- Southwest is more of a budget airline, so it may not be subject to the same magnitude of loss from people missing/skipping their flights. I could see the United demographic having far more no-shows. For those who aren't aware, airlines overbook because there are, on average, a significant number of people who miss or skip their flights. It's wasteful (and bad business) to leave those seats empty when instead, you can overbook and have an extremely low percentage of flights end up without enough seats. Edit: as others mentioned, overbooking also allows airlines to be more flexible with refunds.