Because some companies sell more than places in the plane and there are places that same sit is given to more than one person and there are situations when last on the line can not get on the place since all places are occupied. It happened for friends of us.
Don't think this works at least in Europe due to regulations. Due to some kind of error, I was bumped from from a flight a year ago, which meant I a) got a free flight the next day b) got the cost of food and a hotel for the night back from the airline, and c) around 80€ flat.
So unless you absolutely have to be there the day of your flight, it is even a pretty good deal to stay.
The cash compensation in Europe if they bump you is 250 - 600 EUR per flight and person, depending on distance. That even applies for significant delays.
To be fair, it can be a hassle to get it. But sometimes, if the airline is clearly at fault not.
And for the record: Every airline overbooks. But usually they find enough volounteers to make it work.
I think this is more an American phenomenon; Ryanair does not systematically do it as far as I know. The EU's passenger rights reg would make this extremely expensive for the airline.
Ryanair absolutely does this. I've been on a flight in the last 3 months that was +2 oversold. Everyone else had checked in online earlier than me and gotten a seat assignment, so I was held at the gate, unable to pass, until the gate was ready to close and they had confirmed they had a seat for me.
The 'rules' state that they're supposed to ask for volunteers, but in this instance, they didn't. I was just withheld from boarding until they confirmed they had a seat for me.
But you can't even get to the gate if you haven't checked in, at which point you get an assigned seat. If you somehow managed to get past the entry point and security without checking in then something went wrong at the airport, not with RyanAir.
I don’t think this is true — every airline that I know of supports “seat assignment at gate” to handle exactly this kind of overbooking.
(How it happens can vary: your PNR might not have a seat assigned, or the seat might have been double booked. Either way, at check-in they’ll typically notify you and let you through regardless, since you have a perfectly valid ticket.)
Same as the sibling comment already stated, I was able to check in, and instead of being assigned seat 24B (or something of that calibre), my boarding pass said “seat assigned at gate”.
I still had a valid boarding pass. Nothing went wrong at the airport, besides Ryanair failing to follow correct overbooking procedure. Fortunately in that instance, had they refused boarding on me, I would have suffered zero inconvenience, and have received 350 euros compensation and a flight the next day. In a way, I wish they had refused me that day.
