Airlines routinely overbook to compensate for no-shows. When they guess wrong, they offer free tickets or vouchers to persuade passengers to give up their seats, to avoid forcing passengers off. With the busy summer travel season approaching, overbooking is expected to worsen. Commercial flights on the average are already more than 70 percent full, and that's expected to climb to more than 80 percent between May and September. So many smart people these days realize bumping isn't such a bad word.
Travelers also get to keep that ticket.
Since the DOT doesn't regulate voluntary compensation, some airlines offer even more. But now it turns out that the airlines may have been the real winners. In February, the DOT's inspector general said airlines weren't giving enough compensation to travelers who are forced to give up their seats. It discovered those passengers were given the same amount or less than passengers who voluntarily gave up their seats. It turns out that DOT regulation hadn't been addressed since the industry was deregulated in 1978.