Involuntary bumping happens at the rate of 1 in 10,000. It is a relatively rare event. I have been voluntarily bumped numerous times and was well compensated for giving up my seat. In most instances, the delay in reaching my final destination was a couple of hours. In a couple of cases, I wound up on more direct flights that actually got me to my final destination before my original flight. My all time favorite was when traveling on a free ticket, via frequent flyer miles, I agreed to be bumped twice and got home with only a modest delay from the original flight. In my experience, the compensation was well worth the typically small delay in getting to my final destination.
A lot of airline travel is nothing like a cruise. From experience, I can tell you that a lot of business travel changes at the last minute. With the exception of some shuttle flights where you essentially paid when you were on the flight, the vast majority (perhaps all) of my business travel has been paid at booking for the last 30 years+, not when I got to the airport. You can vote with your pocketbook and not travel on airlines that overbook but the net result is you won't be doing much traveling.
The overbooking process works very well from my experience. The reason it works well is that there are people who are more than happy to give up their seats for compensation so the number of involuntary bumpings is small. Obviously it pays for the airlines to do this otherwise they wouldn't. I have flown several million miles and I have never been involuntarily bumped. I have, however, been involuntarily bumped from a hotel. They paid for a cab ride down the street to another hotel and paid for the night. I was back the next night where I should be.
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Originally Posted by Steve9930
There is absolutely no reason for Airlines to over book a flight. Change the business model and make it more like buying a cruise. You want it you buy it. Want to reschedule buy insurance. Don't make the flight you still bought the seat. They are using a model that was set years ago when you could make a reservation and did not pay until you arrived at the airport and checked in. The one airline that I know of that does not over book is Allegiant. There are others. So to say they all over book is not correct. Airlines will do as much as we let them. Vote with your pocket book. And lets also get this straight, the flight was no over booked. United could have very easily put this crew on a shuttle. Also the compensation very rarely is worth the wait all things considered.
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