While the full story on the actual bookings has not yet been told, the actions (or lack thereof) by the agent the day before also beg many questions. But I suspect that the where and how the tickets were booked is a major factor. And if in fact they were connecting to another carrier on an entirely separate booking, then there were lots of risks involved, IDB being only one of them.

Unfortunately, this story has now entered the popular lexicon as a 10 year old being bumped despite that not really being the case. The pressure to ban overbooking will only mount, with very little analysis of what that will really lead to. IMO, handling misconnects will become a nightmare.