Airlines offering vouchers for you to give up your seat. Why? How does the pricing scheme work?
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The general idea is that you can pretty much statistically prove that if you have 350 bought tickets to a flight, then a hand ful of people are not showing up. Someone is stuck in traffic. Someones mum just died. Someone overslept. And so on.
Which means that it’s an actual business practice to oversell. (Free money, amirite?)
Sometimes, though, it doesn’t work out as planned.
Some airlines also have a business model where the Super Ultra Fancy Platinum Starry VIP Members can demand a seat on a fully booked flight. Where the airline literally throws someone off to make room. Allowed to be used a handful of times per year. And you can bet that if you risk not getting home to your kids birthday and you happen to have one of those memberships, then you are gonna use it. After all, you paid for it by being loyal and by paying for all of your flights for a whole year in advance.
They also pretty much count on at least a handful of the passengers booked on that flight being so relaxed that they are the exact opposite of being in a hurry to get home. (as compared to the frequent flyer who is so far from being relaxed that he is prepared to force the airline to strand someone else on the airport just to get home when he wants to.) Or just on a tight budget and don’t mind getting financial compensation for putting up with a delay. (and maybe the business traveller would usually feel that it plays out kind of nice to get his dinner at the airport paid for and take a flight a few hours later, but this day just wasn’t it.)
So. In reality, They are always getting paid for more seats than they have. And occasionally someone calls their bluff on it. And when that happens, they have to toss some money around to not loose face. And they pretty much count on someone being so hungry and happy to have more of an adventure that they accept the offer.
I mean, if you are on a vacation in New York and about to go home, and have a few days vacation left before you start working again, then it’s not really the end of the world that the airline says *”We’ll give you $100 in cash and pay for your hotel if you are willing to be bumped to the flight tomorrow at 10.”* If you are going home because you are the only sibling not gathered around your dying father, then you are gonna say no.
Look at all these things together, you realise that it’s not really about how it’s financially sound to do this on this flight. It’s how it’s financially sound to do it on all flights and not really being forced to use it too often.
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