In the wake of the infamous United Airlines dragging incident (which ironically did not involve overbooking) there’s been a big public focus on airline practices of selling more tickets than there are seats, in the expectation or hope of no-shows.
Southwest Airlines, the biggest U.S. discount carrier, has now jumped in with an announcement that it will no longer overbook flights, starting this spring. The announcement comes just a day or two after JetBlue affirmed its already-existing no-overbooking policy. Both airlines, though, warned that passengers might still be bumped, if plane sizes are changed or because of delays or re-routings.
While the Big 3 airlines have not made any promises on giving up overbooking, Delta and United have both increased the amount they’re willing to pay volunteers to give up their seats. And United has said it is tweaking its software so that flights that are likely to fly full will not be overbooked by as much or as often.
