Economically speaking, non-refundability doesn't necessarily make overbooking unnecessary.

Let's take two airlines, A and B. Both only sell non-refundable tickes. A never overbooks. B always overbooks. What happens?

A will fly with some number of empty seats on average, because they still get the occasional no-show. B flies with fewer empty seats on average because they overbook.

Which airline can offer more competitive prices? It's B. Because by overbooking B's revenue per plane leg is higher.

If that isn't clear, here's an example. Say the planes have a capacity of 100, and on average 2 people fail to show. A sells 100 tickets for $100.00 each. B sells 101 tickets for $99.02 each. On average, B makes more money on every flight, _and_ is more competitive on price.

Of course with the numbers in my example the compensation paid by B on the odd occasion that everyone shows up probably kills any additional profit. The real numbers matter in order to determine to what extent this really happens in practice. But I hope I've demonstrated that non-refundability of tickets doesn't necessarily or automatically mean that overbooking is not profitable.

So there is some potential level of competitive benefit to overbooking even on non-refundable tickets, assuming that some people still occasionally fail to show (because they miss a connection, become ill, or whatever).

On the other hand, the discussion delays boarding, you need better/more gate staff, you need the infrastructure to pay out, quickly book to other flights, etc.

I think Ryanair's approach of not overbooking is sensible as it keeps the operation very easy. Also, they can book every flight to 100%. If you deny boarding, you need to offer alternatives. That's not possible if you're the only airline flying from the airport (Ryanair used to use a lot of regional airports) and your next flights are already at 100%.

> If that isn't clear, here's an example. Say the planes have a capacity of 100, and on average 2 people fail to show. A sells 100 tickets for $100.00 each. B sells 101 tickets for $99.02 each.

As usual, people striving to save one dollar no matter what (in this case, giving up the certainty of flying) are the problem.

It could be much more than one dollar. Those were my made up numbers to demonstrate the principle, not any kind of indication of the magnitude of the real numbers.

> As usual, people striving to save one dollar no matter what (in this case, giving up the certainty of flying) are the problem.

It's not necessarily a problem. Flyers can choose between certainty of flying and other nice things that cost money. Most appear to choose having other nice things instead. Southwest is banking on flyers choosing the other way. There may well be space for both approaches in the market.

Are you aware of any airline that exploits overbooking while letting you choose a "no-overbooking-for-my-seat" fare?

Not explicitly, but I'm guessing that if you've paid for business/first, there is some small chance you'll be bumped back to economy (as in the story making the rounds a few weeks back) but probably a vanishingly small chance you'll get bumped off the plane entirely.

Southwest flights aren't that cheap unless you book in advance. And they used to (still might?) have a very flexible refund policy. You could not show up for a flight, never call, and still get a full credit for the value of your ticket to any other Southwest flight in the next 12 months w/ no penalty. I really like Southwest.

They've restricted it slightly: now you have to notify them at least 10 minutes before the flight. But still no penalties - I really hope they don't have to do away with that policy since that's the main thing I like about Southwest.

The 10 minutes prior departure cancellation rule is for full refund to the original payment method, i.e. refund to credit card or cash. If you missed the flight without cancellation, you got back SW credit as refund, which has to be used within a year.

For the lowest-price ticket, "Super Web Saver" or whatever, there is no way to get a cash refund for a cancelled flight 24 hours after purchase. You just get the credit for cancelling 10 minutes before departure.

After that, you get nothing. It's in the contract. I think it's only been that way for 2 years or so.

That's still better than most other airlines. I'll definitely be considering SW from now on. I'm assuming they only do domestic flights?

They recently added quite a few international flights [1]. They now offer service to Aruba, Belize, Cabo San Lucas/Los Cabos, Cancun, Cuba (not sure if it has started yet), Grand Cayman Island, Liberia, Costa Rica, Mexico City, Montego Bay, Nassau, Puerto Vallarta, Punta Cana, San Jose, and Costa Rica.

[1] https://www.southwest.com/international/

They're mostly domestic US with a small offering of routes to the Caribbean, Mexico, and Lat Am.

If you miss a flight they cancel the whole thing, including the return flight. Bastards.

Every single airline does this. In part, because people would often book returns because they were cheaper than one-ways.

The majority of seats sold in Europe are now one-way / singles, due to the rise of low-cost carriers which don't offer anything else.

However it's still a good idea to book each individual flight in a different transaction. Avoids any shennanigans on the airline's part for no-shows and there's no downside for the passenger other than a slightly longer booking process.

That's still flexible enough for my needs. Thanks for the info.

Yeah, they're super flexible, Southwest is pretty amazing.

I've never used them and admittedly don't know much about their model (the only time I fly US carriers is when I'm crossing the pond from Europe).