Carriers should be permitted to continue with the overbooking practice as seats in a flight are a time sensitive and "perishable" product, global airlines body IATA said today.
Against the backdrop of American carrier United Airlines forcibly evicting a passenger recently "” an incident that sparked a global outrage "” the International Air Transport Association"™s (IATA) said the practice of overbooking flights is an important tool for managing inventory.
"Airlines should be allowed to continue long-established overbooking practices. The airline business is unique in that once a flight takes off, the seats on that flight are no longer available for sale; it"™s a time-sensitive, perishable product," the grouping said in a statement.
Overbooking refers to airlines allowing passengers to book seats in excess of available capacity.
IATA also noted that airlines can, with a degree of certainty, overbook a flight considering the number of no- shows expected…
