Originally Posted by
DENviaLAX
The only thing that would make sense would be that something happened last minute with whatever crew was supposed to work whatever SDF flight Monday morning, and needed to get a replacement crew there on this flight. But that would also mean that the flight wasn't actually technically overbooked with revenue passengers, just that the best way to inconvenience the least amount of people was to bump four people off this flight and get the crew on vs have to cancel or severely delay flight out of SDF tomorrow. That's always a crappy situation, but ultimately makes sense to me.
I suppose it's extremely rare that an airline is unable to find volunteers out of 50+ people, especially given the high money offers. I personally didn't even know what the procedure was for involuntarily denying boarding, but I can definitely see how it can cause a lot of tension. Then again, the flight could've been just as easily canceled for any number of reasons, and the net result would've been the same (worse, technically) for that individual passenger, so I don't quite understand the extreme reaction on his part.
If they knew they were going to have to bump passengers, boarding the plane was a key mistake. It would be much harder to get people who are already on the plane to give up their seats, because they then have to fact the additional inconveniences of getting off the plane and reboarding an unspecified new one in addition to the inconvenience of being delayed.
If I were the airline and faced with that situation, I would TELL THE PASSENGERS why they needed volunteers before making the request. People's normal assumption would be that they were looking for volunteers because some sort of privileged Uber Frequent Flyer needed to be accommodated. They would naturally resent the fact that there are some passengers who are more equal than others, and would cheer the possibility of some privileged passenger having to suck it up and be delayed for a change.