Delta avoids the overbooking issue by having a much SMARTER policy

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

15. Overbooking has been around for upwards of 50 years.

I know because I was an airline ticket agent starting in January, 1969.

Back then there was a larger problem with no-shows, or people who held multiple reservations to cover various contingencies. Even today, not all tickets are non-refundable, and so to assume (as was the discussion in a different thread) that the airline will get its money even if a seat goes out empty, simply isn't correct.

The problem isn't the overbooking in the first place. The problem is when more confirmed passengers show up than there are seats for. Overbookings are standard practice to try to make up for no-shows. Airlines want every single flight to go out 100% full, if possible. Their mantra is that an empty seat can never be sold, and is totally lost revenue.

I understand that these days flights need to average an 85% load factor just to break even, which is horrifying. That says a lot about how seats are priced, and perhaps about how many seats are purchased using miles.

The airlines have gotten themselves into this situation by under-pricing most seats, and the idiocy of frequent flier programs. A good twenty years ago I was reading things about how the airlines were digging a deep hole with those programs, and I'm sure it's gotten vastly worse in the years since. I will also confess that I cannot begin to understand how anyone ever gets a seat with frequent flier miles, as I have never ever had enough miles to do so. Sigh.

Oh, and the Delta practice described is pure genius.
But the crucial point in the United situation is not that the flight was oversold, because it wasn't. It was that some crew members who needed to deadhead to pick up a flight showed up after this one was boarded. The United agents handled it very badly, to say the least. Why they didn't keep on upping the offer to get volunteers is beyond me. I've been in the gate area more than once when that has happened. Once, and only once, I took advantage of such an offer. Turned out to be well worth it.

Please do not think I am for one millisecond condoning what United did. They were wrong. Totally and completely. There was a far better way to handle what happened, including biting the bullet about the crew members not being accomodated.