I still don't believe this claim. A 727 seats 129, a 787 seats 290, and a 747 seats 366. That means it only makes flights slightly less expensive. I only travel a few times a year and I'd rather pay 2% more than get bumped off my flight.
Why do we allow airlines to overbook but not movie theaters or other industries? This seems like an artificial advantage we've given them and it doesn't seem beneficial at all to the average consumer.
Paying 2% more and getting bumped off your flight is a false dichotomy. United's approach of offering $10k avoids both.
I don't see a reason to waste seats if it can be avoided without hurting consumers. Wasting seats is inefficient economically and bad for the environment.
I think you're missing the fact that a percentage of people don't turn up for their flights, so on most overbooked flights, the airline doesn't have to buy back tickets at all.
If theaters had an escalating buyback price for their tickets, I could be persuaded to, say, not see the next Star Wars movie for $100 and then see it later. I have a price. Most people do.
Almost nobody gets bumped involuntarily on competent airlines. They just increase the bid until someone has a hell of a great day by clearing first class round trip tickets across the globe for volunteering to spend the night.
This isn't your point, but, in case anyone's wondering, Southwest doesn't fly any of those planes. An interesting thing about their operation is that they exclusively fly Boeing 737 aircraft.
I still don't believe this claim. A 727 seats 129, a 787 seats 290, and a 747 seats 366. That means it only makes flights slightly less expensive. I only travel a few times a year and I'd rather pay 2% more than get bumped off my flight.
Why do we allow airlines to overbook but not movie theaters or other industries? This seems like an artificial advantage we've given them and it doesn't seem beneficial at all to the average consumer.