When an airline oversells a flight, it is making a calculated bet that some passengers
won’t show, allowing the company to maximize its profits and operate a flight as fully as
possible. But sometimes, all travelers show up, and they find themselves without a seat.
The result is bumped passengers and rebookings on a later service and/or
some form of compensation. So, which airline oversells seats the most in the United States?
Radical Storage recently released a study in which it analyzes which
airlines mishandle baggage and oversell seats the most in the US.
The study found that American Airlines and its regional branch
Envoy Air ranked highest for mishandled baggage.
Last year, American received the most reports of mishandled baggage,
with over 466,000 items of luggage reported to have been lost, stolen, or damaged.
Meanwhile, Envoy Air had the largest number of mishandled bags per 1,000 in 2021, at nine. The
carrier mishandled more than 81,000 of the over 9 million consumers that flew with the company.
Overbooked flights and bumped passengers are another frustration for passengers.
In 2021, nearly 175,000 passengers in the United States
were voluntarily or involuntarily denied boarding due to overbooked flights.
While approximately 94% of all the impacted passengers were given the
option of not boarding the flight, around 10,648 were
given no such option to volunteer. That means they were simply denied boarding.
Data analyzed showed that Southwest Airlines denied the most passengers in 2021.
It denied the boarding of 34,355 passengers
or about 94 per day, and just over 4,000 of these were given no say in the matter.
Delta Air Lines was the second most likely airline to turn away
passengers. It denied boarding of 27,417 passengers in 2021. Unlike Southwest Airlines,
Delta Air Lines reported that all those denied boarding did so voluntarily.
Overall, 2.92 per 10,000 travelers were denied boarding by US carriers, with Skywest Airlines
the most likely to deny customers a seat they booked, with a rate of 6.42 per 10,000 passengers.
Republic Airways and Endeavor Air follow closely with 6.21 per 10,000 passengers.
Meanwhile, Hawaiian kept overbooking to a minimum. In 2021, it only denied boarding of 31 passengers,
the least among the 16 airlines studied.
Since 2019, Delta Air Lines has denied boarding to 158,554
passengers. Only four were not voluntary, according to the airline.
Close behind Delta is American, denying boarding of 154,202 passengers. Sadly,
11,338 were involuntarily.
Overall, between 2019 and 2021, over 732,000 airline passengers have been
denied boarding by US carriers, with 33,496 denied their seats involuntarily.
When an airline asks for volunteers to give up their seats, there is the possibility of
not having enough volunteers. When this occurs, the airline has the
right to involuntarily bump passengers by following an established list of criteria.
Passengers that arrived at check-in at the latest is one factor,
but fare category and frequent flyer status will also guide an airline’s decision.
Have you ever been denied boarding a flight in the US?
Was it voluntarily or involuntarily? Let us know in the comments below.