There’s a common practice in the airline industry in which a carrier will sell more tickets to a flight than passengers it can actually hold. This is called “overbooking.”
Why do they do this? As explained by Condé Nast Traveler, the reason is simple. Typically, there is a predictable number of passengers who, for one reason or another, will simply not show up to their flight. Rather than simply accept their money and have an empty seat, airlines will overbook a flight. This is in order to maximize their profits and not let a single seat go to waste.
While airlines have gotten pretty good at guessing how many will show up, that doesn’t mean the system always works. TikToker Jaimie Steck (@jaimiesteck) recently shared her frustration with this after her own experience. Her video earned over 272,000 views.
According to her, not only can you get unexpectedly kicked off your flight, but doing this one thing can put you in danger of removal. He’s what can happen.
How Did This Passenger Almost Get Kicked Off Her Flight?
In her video, Steck introduces viewers to a sinister-sounding concept: “involuntary denial of boarding.”
According to Steck, she had arrived at the airport with her family for a flight. However, she discovered that the flight was delayed for about two hours. While this was an annoyance, Steck says she wasn’t too bothered.
Eventually, the flight started boarding—but when Steck went to scan her ticket, something strange happened.
“My dad gets on just fine. My mom gets on just fine. So I get in line, I get up, I scan my little barcode, and it denies,” Steck recounts. “And they’re like, ‘Oh, you’re gonna have to go get a new boarding pass.’ And I’m like, ‘Huh?’”
“I go up to the desk and basically, they say, ‘You’re on an involuntary denial of boarding list,’” she continues.
It was at this point that Steck says she was told that each airline crew is provided with a list of passengers who are eligible for involuntary denial of boarding.
What determines ‘the list?’
“They basically informed me that the airline sends them a list of random people where, if they overbook the flight, these random people they’ve selected just don’t get to get on it,” Steck explains. “And lo and behold, I peek over and my name is second to last. I looked at them, and I was confused. I’m like, ‘Overbooked? I bought these tickets weeks ago. It wasn’t last-minute and I had an assigned seat that I specifically selected.’”
This apparently didn’t matter, and Steck was forced to stay at the gate while the workers figured out if there was enough space on the plane to accommodate her. Among the group stuck at the airport with Steck was a doctor who was insistent that he be home, and a woman to whom this had already happened once that week.
At this point, Steck took a closer look at the gate agent’s computer. According to Steck, each name on the “involuntary denial of boarding” list had a price next to it. Steck looked at her own price and compared it to how much she paid, finding that the amounts were identical. This led her to develop a theory.
“I realized that they were going in order of the price that you paid to get on the flight,” Steck explains. “So, the only thing that I can deduce from that is that they were basically going on who spent the most money.”
Is This Really How Airlines Decide Who Gets to Fly?
Hearing this story, one may wonder if airlines can really just decide that you are unable to fly because they overbooked.
In short, yes, they can.
As noted by the U.S. Department of Transportation, typically, an airline will attempt to find people who will volunteer to take a later flight, usually with additional financial compensation for doing so. Failing this, they are allowed to “bump” passengers involuntarily.
Regarding what criteria an airline uses to bump a passenger, that is up to the airline—though they cannot use identifiers like gender or race to make their determination.
“If there are not enough passengers who are willing to give up their seats voluntarily, an airline may deny you a seat on an aircraft based on criteria that it establishes, such as the passenger’s check-in time, the fare paid by the passenger, or the passenger’s frequent flyer status,” notes the U.S. Department of Transportation.
This means that Steck may be accurate in her assessment that the airline was determining whether she or others would be bumped based on how much they paid for their flights.
What are bumped-off passengers entitled to?
As far as what those who were bumped are entitled to, that depends on the airline. However, there are some things that passengers are entitled to by default.
According to Glamour, if you arrive at your destination within an hour of the scheduled arrival time, the airline is not legally required to compensate you. For domestic flights, a delay of two to four hours entitles the bumped passenger to 200% of their one-way fare, typically capped at $775. Delays beyond four hours increase the required compensation to 400% of the one-way fare, usually capped at $1,550.
For international flights, things are similar, but with longer delay thresholds. For example, a delay of one to four hours requires 200% of the one-way fare, while delays over four hours require 400%.
In an email to the Mary Sue, Steck said that the airline did not ask for volunteers to stay behind. They just began involuntarily preventing people from boarding. She adds that she’s not sure how many people made it.
“I only saw three of us get on. The woman below me on the list, me, and the doctor. That girl it already happened to stayed behind, along with three others,” she recalled.
She then offered her thoughts on the practice overall.
“Unless it jeopardizes the plane safety, this practice shouldn’t take place,” she detailed. “I was traveling home from a destination and if I didn’t have family there I would’ve been completely stranded. The girl informed me they ‘should’ refund the ticket price if you are forced to stay behind but hotel, food, etc. until whenever the next flight out is was NOT covered. You were on your own. It was also the last flight of the night so everyone was stuck for at least a day.”
Commenters Don’t Like Overbooking
In the comments section, users questioned the practice of overbooking altogether.
“Overbooking should be plain illegal. It’s an insane concept. You buy a ticket should mean that you get a seat,” declared a user.
“I don’t understand the whole over booking [for] flights,” wrote another. “‘Oh we don’t wanna waste money on an empty seat’ it’s not empty someone bought a ticket and didn’t show that seat was still paid for they didn’t lose money to begin with.”
“I am convinced that airlines are modern day torture devices,” declared a further user. “Having people sit on planes on the tarmac for hours with no information, food or water, diverting planes to various cities making it extremely difficult to get home. Picking random ppl to not allowed boarding. Rebooking flights to random cities not even remotely close to where you need to go. The list of reasons is endless.”
@jaimiesteck Lower the price… lower the potential refund… *allegedly* #jaimiesteck #airline #storytime #airport #storytelling ♬ Rodeo – Jaimie Steck
The Mary Sue reached out to Steck via TikTok direct message and email.
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