It’s possible (probable) that I’m just a big dummy but I simply don’t understand the airline business. Now I promise this blog won’t be just one big rant about flying. I am vehemently against people complaining about flying. Especially on Twitter. Oh boy there is nothing worse than an entitled celebrity tweeting at Delta. Flying is a miracle and any inconvenience that is associated with it just needs to be sucked up.
This blog is just about the business side of flying. It’s just a simple honest question: How the fuck does the airline business work? No really, I don’t get it (and refuse to google it). Every single plane is oversold. They sell more tickets than there are seats. Now how the hell does that make sense? I know this isn’t news to anyone but it’s still shocking to me.
First off, why do they do this? From what I’ve heard, it’s some BS like flying is so expensive that they need to make sure every seat is filled so they aren’t operating at a loss. Um that can’t possibly be true. You mean this operation is so costly that if the dude in 11C doesn’t show up then the whole business is in the red. That would be such a bad business model that it can’t possibly be true. Also, how is it true that it’s a guarantee that at least a few people won’t show up to every single flight. Yeah I understand that things happen and people miss flights but the idea that basically every flight in the world is missing someone feels like a wild stat. Almost feels like a conspiracy if you ask me.
Okay I’m spiraling so let’s just break it all down for a quick sec. The airline has a product (seats) with a limited supply and they are allowed to sell a greater number of tickets than there are seats. How is that not illegal? They are selling something they literally don’t have. Isn’t that sort of like a pyramid scheme? Is there any other business that works like that? Can you imagine getting to a football stadium and being told that your seat was also sold to someone else so you can’t go in. Stadiums have empty seats every single game. I just can’t make sense of it in my brain.
I actually don’t have a conclusion to this blog. I’m just confused. But I’m not going to do anything about it because even though I think this is robbery the fact that I can get to California in a few hours is amazing so whatever.
Alright I’m done yelling. gotta jet.
