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Short but annoying answer -- you are not buying a widget, you are executing a contract of carriage with an airline, governed by a multi-page written contract an

Short but annoying answer -- you are not buying a widget, you are executing a contract of carriage with an airline, governed by a multi-page written contract and hundreds if not thousands of pages of associated government regulations. That contract gives both you and the airline a number of very specific performance requirements, and also a bunch of outs in situations like weather delays. To get into the longer answer -- seats on a plane are a special kind of commodity, because they become completely worthless the minute the door closes. If you really want to treat them as widgets, 99.999% of the time the result will be worse for the airline (they fly a plane with empty seats, which they do not get paid for), and worse for the consumer (people don't get where they want to go, because planes are taking off with empty seats). I will argue that a world where airlines overbook, we all get lower fares and better flight availability, passengers can change their tickets with nominal penalties, significantly less than 1% of passengers are compensated to change their flight plans, and 0.007% of passengers (that's 7 people out of 100,000) are involuntarily bumped with compensation (source: https://www.dallasnews.com/business/airlines/2017/03/20/hold-onto-seat-us-airlines-bump-fewest-passengers-two-decades https://www.dallasnews.com/business/airlines/2017/03/20/hold...) is better than the alternative.

SilasX 9y ago
>Short but annoying answer -- you are not buying a widget, you are executing a contract of carriage with an airline, governed by a multi-page written contract and hundreds if not thousands of pages of associated government regulations. But that is itself a problem: that they're banking on you not knowing your rights because the exact terms are so complicated. It would be a different matter if each purchase made it explicit: "This is really just a standby ticket with an X% chance of having to bump you, in which case you are paid $Y and booked on the next flight. To convert to a true reservation you may pay $Z."
- URSpider94 9y ago
  At the risk of beating a dead horse ... Overbooking is not the only reason that airlines have to deny boarding. Sometimes, they end up making an aircraft change. Sometimes, headwinds dictate that they have to lower their weight. Sometimes (as in the now-infamous United case), they decide that they need those seats to carry crew. Sometimes, a seat is broken, and they can't use it. JetBlue is an airline that does not oversell seats (Southwest apparently also decided to join them in that practice this year -- my guess is that their unique no-assigned-seats boarding method gives them a lot more flexibility). Despite that, in 2016, they had one of the highest rates in the industry of forcibly denied boarding, significantly above the industry average. (source: https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/04/16/1-us-airline-never-overbooks-its-flights.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/04/16/1-us-airline-never...). Each and every one of those had one of those "true reservation, it's not a standby ticket" tickets that you're talking about. Practically, when picking who to deny boarding to, airlines have some pretty clear rules. If you want to be sure you're going to get a seat, pick one for yourself when you make your reservation, check in as early as possible, and buy a refundable ticket.

SilasX 9y ago

>Short but annoying answer -- you are not buying a widget, you are executing a contract of carriage with an airline, governed by a multi-page written contract and hundreds if not thousands of pages of associated government regulations. But that is itself a problem: that they're banking on you not knowing your rights because the exact terms are so complicated. It would be a different matter if each purchase made it explicit: "This is really just a standby ticket with an X% chance of having to bump you, in which case you are paid $Y and booked on the next flight. To convert to a true reservation you may pay $Z."

URSpider94 9y ago
At the risk of beating a dead horse ... Overbooking is not the only reason that airlines have to deny boarding. Sometimes, they end up making an aircraft change. Sometimes, headwinds dictate that they have to lower their weight. Sometimes (as in the now-infamous United case), they decide that they need those seats to carry crew. Sometimes, a seat is broken, and they can't use it. JetBlue is an airline that does not oversell seats (Southwest apparently also decided to join them in that practice this year -- my guess is that their unique no-assigned-seats boarding method gives them a lot more flexibility). Despite that, in 2016, they had one of the highest rates in the industry of forcibly denied boarding, significantly above the industry average. (source: https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/04/16/1-us-airline-never-overbooks-its-flights.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/04/16/1-us-airline-never...). Each and every one of those had one of those "true reservation, it's not a standby ticket" tickets that you're talking about. Practically, when picking who to deny boarding to, airlines have some pretty clear rules. If you want to be sure you're going to get a seat, pick one for yourself when you make your reservation, check in as early as possible, and buy a refundable ticket.