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Re:United Airlines piloting technology to manage the problem... by pxeboot on Thursday July 13, 2017 @08:13AM (#14760609)
Overbooking is rarely the result of intentionally selling 105 seats when 100 exist. It is far more often caused by flight delays (missed connections) and cancellations.

Let's say United has 8 flight a day from SEA to DEN. Each are fully booked and hold 100 passengers. 1 of the 8 flights gets cancelled today due a major mechanical problem.

If everyone from the cancelled flight rebooks a on a later flight, now each plane is overbooked by ~14 people.

This happens everyday with every major airline.

Re:United Airlines piloting technology to manage the problem... by didgeoridoo on Thursday July 13, 2017 @08:42AM (#14760753)
Only one airline explicitly does not overbook flights on purpose: JetBlue. This leads one to expect that their overbooking rate due to flight cancellations (0.5 out of 10,000 passengers) is approximately the rate you'd see across the industry if what you're saying is true. Instead, Delta and United (for example) bump passengers at 10/10000 and 7.2/10000, respectively.

Your assertion requires that you actually provide evidence to counter these facts. As you have given none, I have to assume you are incorrect.

Re:United Airlines piloting technology to manage the problem... by URSpider94 on Thursday July 13, 2017 @03:36PM (#14764452)
JetBlue, which does not oversell tickets, bumped .92 out of 10,000 passengers in 2016, "way behind United" (see article).

source: https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/04/16/1-us-airline-never...

Re:United Airlines piloting technology to manage the problem... by peteretep on Thursday July 13, 2017 @08:17AM (#14760628)
Do you have a source for airlines not regularly selling more capacity than exists, because that doesn't gel with my understanding