Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

Re:Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes by sytelus on Friday April 28, 2017 @03:06AM (#14217442)

Another solution is even more simpler. After all seats gets booked, they should clearly mark overbooked tickets as "probable" tickets and heavily discount it + refund it if not eventually available. Keep in mind that airlines don't make huge profits per flight. Giving away $10K to 4 passengers is like giving away 80 seats or about 10 to 20% of revenue which could be almost all of their profits for that flight.

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Re:Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes by cbcoutinho on Friday April 28, 2017 @03:39AM (#14217595)

Those airlines take a risk by overbooking, and that risk can be penalized by a net negative profit if need be. If you're allowed to gamble, you need to be able to lose.

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Re:Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes by awinder on Friday April 28, 2017 @06:29AM (#14218254)

Yup, and moreover like any good casino it's pretty clear that they did the math already. That's why you're getting $800 fake bucks: they crunch figures on how much of that $800 they'd be on the hook for. If they gave you cash, I bet the inflection point where this entire overbooking scheme is actually fiscally worth it, becomes a losing proposal.

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Re:Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes by farm_code on Friday April 28, 2017 @04:27AM (#14217805)

This is how they do in Indian railways. We book tickets. If it's full, we get waiting list number which will be confirmed a day before or on traveling day. If not confirmed, it will be cancelled automatically and refund sent to your account.

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