Originally Posted by
Lioneye
This scam should be illegal and the airline prosecuted.
Imagine you bought something on the net - went to the shop to get it and someone had beat you to it because the vendor sold it multiple times and gave it to whoever turned up first. If you then moaned the vendor said "It would have been a bit dearer if I had sold it properly."
This family - probably not frequent flyers - deserve a bit more sympathy here.
The family described themselves as "seasoned" travellers, and certainly seasoned enough to know how they could split their booking to save some money. Had they entered 2 adults, 1 child into their booking search, this would never have happened.
Making overbooking illegal would raise fares for all passengers. On some routes 30% no shows are quite normal, 10% isn't uncommon. As the article mentioned, it would then lead to a situation of someone desperate to travel unable to take advantage of empty seats. There is also an unnecessary impact on the environment. The system largely works, IDB isn't the norm, and even here it was 98% accurate.