“Let me explain this to you. If you have a 100 seats, and you sell 110 at $200, then you have $22,000.
If from now on you have to sell 100 because of this type of behavior, even if not overbooking, in case you have to accommodate your employees, etc (exactly this situation), then you get $20,000.
The $2000 loss gets eaten by future customers in more expensive airline tickets.”
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The $2000 is either refunded to the customers or applied to a ticket on a later flight.
How do the future customers eat that?
They all overbook, not to refund, but to maximize profit. Some cancel and eat the cancellation fees while the airline still can have a full flight, Or others don’t show, etc. It’s a good way to have a full or mostly full flight except at times you may have to incentivize volunteers if it is more than full.
If they lose the ability to maximize their profits, you and I, on future flights, get to eat that by paying extra in prices that they jack up to now cover the above loss.
Comprende?