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Originally Posted by Carn
An airline, however, cannot serve anybody else once that aircraft has left the gate. If they reserve a seat for you, but you don't show up and the jet leaves without you, that service is gone for ever. They can never sell that 3pm seat from New York to Dallas ever again, because once that jet leaves, it's gone. That service in that point of time has perished.
I forget the exact percentage, but between 5 and 15% of people who reserve seats on a flight never show up. So it makes sense for an airline to overbook a jet because historically speaking, not everyone is going to show up and get on that jet.
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Sure this makes sense, selling a seat to someone else after someone doesn't show up to take their reservation. What doesn't make sense is selling the same seat more than once, especially at a crowded time like just before Christmas. If I hadn't shown up, that seat wasn't going empty, as there was a big crowd of people waiting for standby seats. I know, because there were some half dozen standby people--people who I assume bought a last minute ticket-- who got on the flight for which I had an actual paid for seat that I bought several months in advance and for which I was at the airport some two hours in advance for a domestic flight.
It was insanely frustrating to watch
stand-by passengers boarding a plane I had an actual ticket for and wasn't allowed on. They had empty seats at departure. I had a ticket, not a stand-by just-in-case-there-are-extra-seats-available ticket, an actual ticket for that particular flight. It would make sense to give a passenger with a ticket bought months in advance precedence of those who showed up late.
I'm ranting, I know. It still bugs me.
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If you miss the first flight on a round trip ticket, then they are going to assume that you are not going to be on the return flight.
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But if they refuse to let you board, then arrange for you to get to your destination on a different flight, it would make sense to assume that you'd be at your destination and would be coming back.
I know that wasn't directed at me, but I just had to vent.
Gilda