Originally Posted by
mre5765
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The hotel (unless it is the Tulip Inn Rainbow Hotel Terminus in Oslo; apparently under new management 10 years after it shafted me) keeps my room empty from check in time to check out time if I guarantee space via deposit or credit card guarantee. The airline should be happy that it will burn less fuel because my fat butt and my bags aren't adding weight.
We have different ethics, and that is OK.
I mostly agree with you, and I don't think we have such different ethics. I simply understand airline seats to be a very special case.
Usually I agree it is unethical to sell something twice. It would be unethical, for example, in the case of a theater ticket or hotel room. If the first customer has not shown up by the beginning of the curtain/check-in time, it is unethical to sell that ticket/room again, because there is a possibility that he/she shows up after that and still wants to use it. If the ticket/room is resold to someone else, you have potentially deprived the original customer of his/her legitimate use of it.
But airlines are different. As soon as the flight takes off, the value of the empty seat is completely down the toilet, it has expired. (I know this applies to other things too, but airline seats are particularly dramatic in the high cost of everything involved)
But also, the original customer cannot show up half an hour after the flight departed, and still use the ticket. There is no possibility of it.
So for the special case of airlines, they have been allowed to (as some people phrase it) sell the same seat twice because doing so should not deprive any legitimate ticket holder of his/her original seat, and prevents it from going wasted. Of course, this has been pushed to the limit lately, and sometimes they are not diligent about asking for volunteers to make sure that no one is forced to give up their seat. (and the IDB penalties should be higher, as part of the bargain that they're allowed to profit from this practice.)
But both from any legal and ethical viewpoint, that is how I am ok with the airline exception. We already benefit from this arrangement by non-refundable fares being cheaper than they were 10 years ago, so I don't complain unless they have handled an oversold situation very poorly. And I don't think it suggests a right to claim all original benefits back because they sold the seat twice.
hope this clarifies things.