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Comment by bb611 | Hacker News Reader

I think the current system actually meets your criteria for fairness quite well.

First, at this point it's reasonable to expect passengers in the US to know that their booking is subject to availability in some limited number of edge cases. It's not particularly common but it's also very public knowledge that it sometime does happen.

Second, both parties have a cost to rebook - passengers pay a rebooking fee, airlines pay a bump fee (in a voucher if the passenger is foolish enough to accept that). Additionally, the rebooking fee for a passenger is significantly lower as a % of ticket cost than it is for the airline.

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>...First, at this point it's reasonable to expect passengers in the US to know that their booking is subject to availability

I question that. My guess is that the vast majority of the people who get a seat assignment when they book, never consider the possibility it might be taken from them. Most of the time, people are conditioned to not want to cause a scene, but I can bet no one is too happy about it when a breach of contract happens.

Airlines are unique in that lots of people go along with this. If you sign a lease to rent your house to someone and on the day they arrive with their moving truck you tell them you decided to lease it to your brother, there is a good chance you will end up in court.

> but I can bet no one is too happy about it when a breach of contract happens.

It's very odd that you consider this a breach of contract, because these contracts are pretty heavily policed by regulators and the courts. Check every ticket you've bought, the contract of carriage includes terms specifically about overbooking.

For instance, here's United's Rule 4G:

All of UA’s flights are subject to overbooking which could result in UA’s inability to provide previously confirmed reserved space for a given flight or for the class of service reserved. In that event, UA’s obligation to the Passenger is governed by Rule 25.

>It's very odd that you consider this a breach of contract,

You are partially right in the sense of the one-sided document that they impose on their customers, they reserve the right to not let you board. In the case of the United passenger (and many others that came to light after this assault) the person had already boarded. At that point, the reasons for not transporting (Rule 21) are spelled out and they don't include reasons like ("we decided to use the seat for our employee" or "a gold member wants the seat"), etc.

>...because these contracts are pretty heavily policed by regulators and the courts.

The idea of involuntary bumping should probably be viewed as regulatory capture. We don't allow that in other industries.

I never knew that they overbooked flights until recently. From my perspective, it appeared obviously wrong and immoral. So never imagined that an ethical company would do this.

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