Luang Prabang, Laos, April 1990, not long after Lao New Year's. For several days, our reserved seats to Vientiane kept getting sold out from under us (Lao Aviation wouldn't hesitate to bump int'l passengers trying to make int'l connections onward if a local official or spouse wanted to go shopping in Vientiane.) We finally got our confirmed seats really confirmed, and boarded the plane--a Yakovlev prop, if memory serves. The last passenger up the stairs looks up and down the aisle, and can't find an open seat. A little scurrying around at the front of the plane, and the ground crew climb in and yank a barefooted, bedraggled, mentally ill "passenger" out of the seat he'd taken and send him back to the tarmac. Frequent flyers on the Luang Prabang-Vientiane route explained that it happened all the time--he would regularly join the parade of people hiking out to the plane and take the seat of his choice.

("Overbooking" on Lao Aviation also meant the not infrequent extra row of plastic stools down the center aisle of the Chinese 12-seaters. There wasn't any toilet to go to anyway, so no reason the aisle had to be open.)