Why do airlines overbook?????
 

Please continue to enlighten me!!!!!! Thanks in advance.........New to flying....

Because they make more $$$$ that way. Why else?

regards - tom

Airlines sell fully refundable tickets. Many times the traveler holding that ticket will not show up just because...

so airlines developed a sophisticated software which can predict how many people will actually show up for a particular flight based on previous info and some other complicated formulas.

They do take a chance when and if everybody shows up, but it really doesn't cost them that much. Offering a $200 voucher for future travel costs the airlines few bucks, the cost of actually providing a seat in the the future when it may or may not be filled. Using a $200 bump voucher on a $400 ticket in the future pretty much covers their expense of transporting you.

As AAFF said, they do it because some people don't show. Why fly an empty seat if you don't have to?

More importantly, for the traveler, is that you really shouldn't care. The likelihood that you will ever be involuntarily bumped is really quite low. And, on the plus side, you may be able to take advantage of a voluntary bump, which usually results in a voucher for future travel, and re-accomodation on the next flight.

The wife and I once flew close to 25k miles each on AA for something like $300, just because we kept getting bumped off of flights and rolling the vouchers into other tickets.

In other words, everybody wins.

Airline sells more tickets.

Passenger who needs to get somewhere can do so even if flight is full.

Passenger who doesn't mind taking a later flight gets a voucher (which often exceeds the price he/she pays for her ticket).

BTW, there are airlines that don't overbook. jetBlue is one.

It makes your ticket cheaper than it would otherwise have been.

If they only booked each seat once then the plane is guaranteed to leave with empty seats due to no-shows on refundable tickets.

If they overbook then there's less chance of empty seats once the plane takes off

One way to avoid getting bumped is to get your seats assigned. It's usually those folks without seats that get bumped.

I once took a voluntary bump for a trip from SFO to Singapore. It turns out I was booked in coach on a flight that all the Japanes salarymen used to fly back to Japan.

The bonus to me was guaranteed business class one way and a $1,000 credit. It paid for a trip to the east coast, and another trip to Rome.

They do it because it makes them the most money. Simple as that.

regards - tom

As an example of what happens if airlines don't overbook, try looking at British long distance trains.

Most of the day, deals are available that offer free seat booking for people who book in advance. Such allocated seats are flagged either by a notice or LCD display at the seat: most passengers don't bother booking.

On the trains I take most often, about half the seats will be flagged - and well over half those flagged seats aren't ever claimed: if the train's full, most passengers just take any flagged seat, knowing they'll have to stand if the assignee turns up (they never do). There are hundreds of different reasons for not turning up: but the higher the journey frequency, the more likely people are just not to turn up.

Fully refundable tickets are only a partial explanation: the overwhelming majority of pre-allocated seats on British trains go to passengers on tickets with highly restricted refund or alteration policies. Often, people don't turn up even if they stand to lose their fare entirely.

And most of those who don't show up are likely to be business travelers who have to stay late or over for business reasons and have fully refundable tickets for just that reason. Chances are these same people have lots of status with the airlines and can get seats pretty easily on subsequent flights.

Every now and then a couple traveling to Florida gets a flat tire on the way to the airport or a college student sleeps through all her alarms, but it is pretty rare.

Many people miss their flights at hub airports due to late incoming connections. At a large airline hub, the airline can predict fairly well how many people may miss their connections on a particular flight each day, based on historic data.

Maybe, could be, because doing it makes them the most profit?

regards - tom

No overbooking policy:
Aircraft has 200 seats.
50 expensive refundable tickets get sold.
150 restricted low-fare tickets left to sell.

Overbooking:
Aircraft has 200 seats.
50 expensive refundable tickets get sold.
30 of those seats are calculated as potential no-shows
180 restricted low-fare tickets left to sell.

If airlines did not overbook, you would pay a generally higher price and had a less overall ability to actually get low fare tickets.

Nevertheless, if I get dumped I hate it. It just happens so rarely, maybe because I do online check-in w/ assigned seats as early as possible usually.

To cover for the no-shows, especially when they play ridiculous games with their ticket pricing:

I needed to get from Rome to Munich. A one-way fare would have been €600. Alitalia had a return ticket for €69. So I bought it and only took the Rome-Munich flight.

Though, I've heard that airlines really hate it when you do this, so don't try it too often.