Originally Posted by
jsloan
Despite what the mass media might have you believe, this isn't a nefarious practice, as evidenced by the reports on the VDB thread of "I volunteered, but they didn't need me." People miss flights all the time. UA has historical information that helps them predict how many no-shows or last-minute changes they might get; they use that to figure out how many seats they can sell without having to deny boarding to anyone. They're quite good at it, but they're not perfect.
Exactly right. It's a good business practice. One of the facts that lost in the Dr. Dao story is that it wasn't a routine overbooking situation. It was extremely rare, the added passengers were a crew that needed to deadhead to their next flight, AND they were booked on the flight within a very short window prior to boarding. This would not have happened if it weren't UA crew. Dr. Dao never would have boarded the plane, and it would have been handled at the gate.
The new policy changes are fine, but more of a PR move. The fix that would have avoided the Dr. Dao incident was made a week or so ago, when UA changed their policy to not allow crew to be booked onto a full flight inside of an hour (IIRC is was 1 hr), of departure time.