Originally Posted by
SK AAR
On the contrary, most likely other pax will misconnect and this flight will leave with empty seats. That is the exact reason why many flights are overbooked but very seldom IDB or downgrade will actually turn out to be needed - keep mind that (most) airlines are actually very good at doing the math and has very little interest in downgrading pax.
True in general but in this case we don't know for sure that it's only overbooked by two nor do we know why those two seats are blocked. In this case, it looks like we're hoping for (at least) two cancellations or no shows out of only 14 J seats.
For oversold flights, the airline is required to solicit volunteers (and recently carriers have been paying enough for VDBs so that IDBs indeed are extremely rare) but it's different for downgrades. AA has already picked the OP and in all likelihood won't offer to pay other passengers to give up their J seats.