Originally Posted by
slickvik
Gate said not oversold. I wonder if the magical Tampa call center gave people vouchers over the phone prospectively
United overbook because they know people won't show. They will either change their plans, miss their flight, mis-connect, get caught in the weather delays on the west coast, etc. The vast majority of times a flight is overbook they do NOT end up needing volunteers.
The only time they are even going to consider doing something proactive is due to something major - a major down-gauge, etc. For a flight thats overbooked by 5-10 people they aren't even going to consider doing anything in advance of the flight as they know people won't make it.
I've had flights where they were at least about 5 overbooked, and we went out with ~10 people clearing on the standby list and still had empty seats!