Broken record time:
Anybody got an idea on who is important enough (from the airline’s perspective) to bump another passenger? I’ve now become obsessed with this, apparently.
Sidebar to your sidebar – if you’re on a multi-leg trip and they won’t assign you a seat beyond a certain point, you’re probably in for an unplanned layover.
It sounds like, for the most part, whoever got there first is “most important.” First come, first serve. I don’t think the airlines make a value judgement as to who is more important.
I’ve been on a flight where nobody volunteered, at least the first time around. They offered $300 vouchers (for a ~$200 flight), nobody bit (or maybe a few did). The upped the reward to $400, got a few (more) takers, and then again to $500, and they got enough volunteers.
Presumably, the cost of paying a willing volunteer a high amount is much, much less than the cost of forcing someone out of their seat against their will and paying them a lower amount.
Side note / epilogue, in case anyone considers holding out:
Everyone who volunteered before the offer was raised to $500 was given $500, but interestingly enough, the airline ended up needed fewer standby seats, and ended up turning back all the people who had volunteered at $500. So people who volunteered at $300 got $500, people who volunteered at $400 got $500, and people who volunteered at $500 got nothing. 
It isn’t like that. The airlines don’t sell each the seat on a flight, then get a call from some big shot and decide to give him someone else’s seat. Airlines routinely overbook flights because people also miss or change their flights frequently.
The airline’s goal is to fly with every seat full. If you call up an hour before the flight and cancel your ticket, the airplane will fly with an empty unsold seat…unless the airline has anticipated that some people will cancel and sold more seats on the flight than the flight actually has.
The hope is that the overbooked seats will exactly match the number of cancellations. Obviously this doesn’t always happen, and the airline asks for volunteers to switch flights. If that doesn’t work they’ll bump the last person to check in, then the next-to-last, then the next-to-next-to-last, etc, until every passenger has a seat.
I’ve been watching a program called Airline on A&E which shows the events at various Southwest Airlines gates around the country. They definitely show the most interesting activity, and sometimes this involves people being denied boarding due to overbooked flights. The gate agents definitely do make a value judgement, so that someone flying to New York to catch an international flight or someone flying to Miami to start a cruise trip will get priority over someone flying home to New York or Miami.
I can assure you that they will definitely assign two people to the same seat. It happened to me once and I’ve seen it several other times.
Rule 1: Get to your seat first and stay there. The 2nd person to get to the seat loses.
Rule 2: Don’t leave the plane until a suitable deal has been struck. They will say over and over “please come with me” etc. Stay on the plane. A boarded passenger has more rights than a person at the gate. Don’t fall for tricks like “Okay, you win, come with me back to the gate and you’ll get an upgrade.” They can bring you your upgrade to the plane.
Rule 3: Be nice but firm. Being a jerk can allow them to call TSA and you’re in hell from then on.
Southwest and back when it existed Western were always very good with the offers for those who would give up their seats. On one rather complex trip I made from Anchorage to Seattle to Denver to Ontario to Seattle to Anchorage, I took a bump in Seattle and two in Denver. The trip actually showed a profit by the time I was home!
I don’t know about all the scenarios, but I know first hand that people with an international leg to their journey have priority over those who do not. No one has been bumped on my behalf, but one time I had boarded an overbooked flight that was subsequently cancelled, spent a long time in line waiting to get another flight (panicking all the way), and when I finally got to the front of the queue, was told that I needn’t have worried since my journey included an international flight – that I had priority. FWIW, this flight was for the Detroit-Baltimore leg on a journey that went from Aberdeen (Scotland) to Amsterdam to Detroit to Baltimore. In other words, I had already completed my international flights, and was on the last leg of my journey. Still got stuck in Detroit for over 9 hours, the bastards. THAT was a long day.
Scary datapoint: A couple months ago, I flew with my family. I had our bundle of e-tickets, and I collected our IDs and handed them all over in one bundle when we checked in. After getting checked in, I re-distributed boarding passes and Ids to everyone. That’s when we realized that instead of handing over three separate e-tickets, I given the clerk three copies of the same pass.
You see, I printed three copies of each, so as to have backups stashed with each of us. I collated wrong, though, and handed over identical passes. They never noticed. I feel so safe now.
I nearly got kicked off a plane last month because I was told since I’d bought a bargain ticket (don’t ask me, I got it straight from the airline, it WAS relatively cheap, but still) that I got picked, along with some other people, due to a lack of volunteers.
I ended up on the plane, but otherwise they’d have put me up overnight and gotten me on a plane in the morning.
Hmm, my flight from O’Hare to LAX on December 26 on United wouldn’t allow me to reserve a seat.
But fortunately, it’s on the way home. I’m taking an early flight and I would gladly get bumped for a later flight. I think I’m at ORD around 8 am.
No one. And everyone. Seriously – no one in particular, and once someone volunteers, everyone else on the plane.
You’re coming at this from the wrong angle. It’s not a matter of being more or less important. It’s a matter of someone has to go, so how do you determine who goes. Obviously if someone volunteers, the problem is solved. If no one volunteers, the airline has a procedure to select someone on a certain basis, as others have described. Importance is not a factor.
It was really how they were selected for non-volunteer bootings I was curious about—once all my other questions were answered. I’m square now.
Yes there is one type of passenger that they will bump you for. If a very frequent flier does not have a seat, and you are a newbie, chances are you (or someone like you) is not making that trip.
With over 600,000 miles on United, if I hold a ticket for a flight, I will most likely get on. The airline does not want to piss me off, as I am very profitable for them. This does not mean that I can walk up at the last minute and buy a ticket for an all ready overbooked flight and get on. But if I had bought a ticket when they were being sold, I most likely will be traveling on that flight.
As has been mentioned people with international connections, people traveling in groups are usually less likely to get bumped.
I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t bump a child traveling with an adult or vice versa unless they bumped both. I’ve been told (some?) airlines don’t bump doctors because they may be flying somewhere to perform an operation. I have therefore been advised to book my tickets as Dr. OldGuy rather than Mr. OldGuy. I do have a valid claim to do so since I have a PhD though I never go by Dr. in other circumstnaces (other then being called it obsequious students)
Continental Airlines once bumped my 4 year old sister from a first class seat on the Hawaii-LAX leg of a flight from Australia to New York, booked by my father, VP of Sales for a Fortune 500 and a million mile member.
Yes, a can of whoop-ass was opened, and it all worked out nicely, but it goes to show that the ticket computer seems to have no logic beyond last-in-first-out.
Indeed. The airlines rely on their staff to make those all-important judgement calls, which is why it is always a good idea to be nice to them.
I and two colleagues took our bumping with such good grace that after nattering to us while they boarded the rest of the punters, they managed to find a seat for the one of us with the longest onward journey. My colleage got to make an international flight in the cockpit jumpseat and the assorted boorish “but I’m an EXECUTIVE” types with standby tickets were all 
“but why is SHE getting on if there are no more seats?”
My remaining colleague and I retired to the bar and waited a couple of hours for the next flight - it was a bit of a blur, to be honest.
I’m glad this thread was opened. Because I still don’t get it.
Say there are 100 seats. They book 110 because statistically they expect 10 no-shows. But the no-shows didn’t happen.
So, why screw with the 100 already seated? Why not just accomodate/bump the 10 late comers. In other words, give them the “perks” you would give the so-called volunteers.
Seems like a lot of bs could be avoided, you simply make the rule that if you’re there first, the seat is yours. The stuff about FF travelers/etc is bs.
Just because you fly a lot doesn’t mean your money is greener.
This last minute hullabaloo at gates costs money. Isn’t there some basic business tenet that states you don’t spend 20% of your costs on 5% of the problems?
Ah, but if the late-comers are late because thier connecting flight (on the same airline) was late? From the airlines point of view they were there earlier.
Brian