It just seems like it happens so often, and airlines will sometimes offer you three times the price of the ticket just to stay a few extra hours. Seems like it’d be easy to just…stop selling tickets once the plane is full??
In: Economics
Economically, it’s due to the fact that the airline industry is one with huge fixed costs but small variable costs.
For the airline, gasing up the plane and flying it is extremely expensive because of the costs of fuel, the plane itself, salaries etc. An extra passenger on the plane is such a small percentage increase in costs(luggage handling, in flight food) that they want as many people on every flight they make so they can make a substantial profit from the sale of tickets. They would rather overbook and have to pay a few people to get off the plane than run an extra flight because each additional flight is extremely expensive but each additional passenger is almost nothing.
Latest Answers