Factually innacurate.
the airlines have been limited as to how much they can offer. 400% of your one-way fare, $1350 maximum.
Otherwise, yes, the proper solution is to require them to keep raising the offer until there are takers.
Sleazy (if legal) stratagems should be costly tp the perpetrators, even if said perps have the ability to get away with such.
“the airlines have been limited as to how much they can offer. 400% of your one-way fare, $1350 maximum”
Clarification - the airlines can take advantage of the limit they have to pay a person denied boarding.
They are free to go over the limit for denied boarding.
However, they were in a situation beyond the denied boarding - the passenger was on the plane and any question of his confirmed, reserved space was over.
The contract of carriage (COC) is very detailed, considering all kinds of scenarios to protect the airline in particular (how many times do you think someone’s antler carried in baggage comes up - but it’s in every COC). Either they can deny boarding and compensate in compliance with Rule 25, or they can remove a passenger from the airplane for a violation of Rule 21. They didn’t cover the situation where they needed the seats for someone more important in their view, for whatever reason. Thus it simply becomes a free market - and they needed to up the offer until someone took it.
Porbably some airlines use the cap on compensation for involuntary denial of boarding as an excuse to cap their voluntary offers, but there is no cap on the voluntary offers.
Delta says it will pay passengers up to nearly $10,000 to leave seats on overbooked flights