What's the deal with "overbooking" flights?

I hear most airlines "overbook", on purpose...what does it mean and what are the ramifications if it indeed is "overbooked" on the day? People get free upgrades?

Most airlines overbook due to the fact that not all the passengers turn up for the flight. Understanding and analysing these patterns is a huge part of any airline's business. If they can get it right then the plane will fly close to full; get it wrong and they will have to dish out involuntarily denied boarding compensation for passengers that are bumped.

Some airlines will upgrade (op-up) passengers on the basis of status in order to make room in the cabin, so Gold pax on a full fare PE ticket will be first in the queue for a visit to Upper Class.

However, other airlines are notorious for almost never upgrading on this basis: SQ is the obvious example. Whether this is because they don't want to devalue their premium cabins, or whether they have much better software I couldn't say.

BC

Oh, so it's more likely that they will 'get away with it', and if if anyone is bumped up to upper class from PE/Y, it is most likely to be Gold card members or frequent flyers?

[Nottingham Nick]

Yes, that is true. There is usually a pecking order for operational upgrades (op-ups).

If you read the V-Flyer upgrade guide you will have a better idea of how the system works.

Nick

Most airlines overbook. Basically there is a statistical no-show factor on all flights. Most airlines monitor these statistics and overbook by roughly the number of people that normally don't show up.

I work for Comair, a Delta Connection Carrier. Take a hub to hub Delta flight from CVG to ATL for example. These flghts are overbooked all of the time because their primary purpose is to shuffle people between the two main hubs- however due to operational delays, people not showing up, etc., these flights often don't actually end up with more people there than seats- Even though they can be oversold by 20 every time.

The only time that overselling becomes a real pain is during holidays when everyone is more likley to show up.

Comair recently stopped overselling their flights, which has been nice because our flights aren't really feeder flights, they're flights from major hubs to smaller outstations, and our no-show factor is much lower.

Within the Delta system, people who are denied boarding due to an oversold flight receive compensation. We will also solicit for volunteers to take a later flight in exchange for compensation. Some airlines will offer free round trip tickets to volunteers, or upgrade a passenger due to this "operational situation". It all depends on the airline- I'm not sure what VS's policies are on that...

Last time I flew internally in the US from Orlando to Newark, the flight wasa overbooked by 8 people, and they were offering:

$450; upgrade to first class on the next flight, and lunch.

You could do fairly well out of this if you weren't in a hurry to get somewhere.

I was under the impression that all airlines overbooked as a standard policy as it makes sense for them to be as full as possible? Just annoying when you're delayed and find someone else has got "your" seat..........seen this happen a few times of those Arline type shows on BBC1/ITV.