What you're asking for already exists pretty much in the US under DoT regulations.

If you are removed involuntarily (not asked to switch for a certificate) you're entitled to up to 400% of your one way fare up to $1350 cash in hand on top rebooking you, depending how long you got held up. [1] Theyre also required to show you your rights on paper in that situation. It almost never happens because there's a huge incentive for them not to do this to you.

And if you think that's rough check out EC 261/2004 [2] and that applies even in the case or a mechanical issue.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/250.5

[2] http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/holidays/article-2271213/...

I should have made clear I know that some of the rights already exist, but this was really my most important point:

> They should also be required to make their best effort to find the available seats for the passenger.

In other words, it should be their responsibility to get you re-booked immediately on all available flights. This should be something that should be verifiable afterwards (i.e. if you as a customer find out they didn't send you on a certain flight by another airline that was better, that should mean additional fines). This should be strongly enforced by regulators to the point where it actually occurs.

Unless I'm missing something (didn't see it in [1]), those rules/enforcement are not currently place. Under these circumstances, I could _maybe_ accept overbooking as an acceptable practice, but without them I don't see why it should be acceptable.

My suggestion is that in the phrasing of the regulation, the longer they wait to get you home the more money they owe you, and that's sort of a built-in enforcement mechanism for them to send you home on the next available flight instead of their next available flight (cash goes from $0 to $1350 over the span of 6 hours) and IMO that's a positive market force thats stronger than any enforcement action, although if you think your rights have been violated feel free to file a complaint against the airline with the DoT.

I have no moral argument against overbooking, its wasteful for them not to do so if their projections show that without it, the seat would go out empty. Sometimes they mess it up, sure, and in those cases they owe you cold hard cash, hotel accommodation IIRC and a flight to your destination anyways. Between the monetary outlay and the social media feedback, as a very frequent traveler (top tier with AA and Alaska this year, that's 190,000 qualifying miles), I feel quite satisfied with the status quo.

Per [1] in 2015, only 0.09% of passengers were denied boarding voluntarily or involuntarily. Involuntarily denied boarding accounts for only 0.0075% (43 out of 613,141) of boarded passengers -- that's four nines -- and my understanding is 2016 performance was even better. You were almost as likely to be hit by lightning each year (1 in 700,000). With those kind of performance metrics, it feels like things are working, or else we need to really get our act together re: lightning strikes :)

[1] https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/pu...