Comment by coffeebeqn
Comment by coffeebeqn 10 months ago
To fill empty seats ? Still better than nothing
Comment by coffeebeqn 10 months ago
To fill empty seats ? Still better than nothing
As far as I know this is a true American problem, I have never heard about this, or have experienced this in Europe or Asia.
People say this, and yet we see vacancy everywhere all the time.
Yep, post-covid it seems like airlines are favoring fewer flights that are more packed. I don't fly a lot (couple times a year), but when I do, it's very rare to see a flight that is not at least 95% full.
Yeah, for the routes I've flown over the last 5-10 years, significant numbers of empty seats are very much the exception rather than the rule, and it got worse post-covid.
Curious what routes you fly, I have been on full flights consistently in the past few years, mostly Boston to Denver
Overbooking is still an industry standard approach to profit maximization. The opportunity cost of being overbooked (rebooking/refunding) is way lower than having a few seats empty because of the average cancellations.
tl;dr - airlines are happy to sell you a seat that's taken, betting some % of other people cancel.
I haven't flown in a number of years, but when I was, it was common knowledge that all airlines intentionally overbooked their flights. If you ended up being one of the unfortunate last 5% (or whatever) to check in, you were effectively turned away and offered a voucher for your trouble.
Is that still done?