Southwest Will Stop Overbooking Flights

After a United Airlines passenger was filmed being dragged off an overbooked flight, Southwest Airlines is now planning to stop the practice of overbooking flights in order to avoid similar situations.

According to The Associated Press, Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly revealed Thursday that the company has been considering moving away from overbooking flights for a long time, but the issue became more important following the United incident.

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Southwest spokeswoman Beth Harbin went on to say that new technology and an improved reservations system scheduled to debut next month will no longer require the airline to overbook flights.

While some politicians have called for carriers to ban overselling flights, Southwest has taken the initiative.

When the new rules and regulations go into effect, Southwest will join JetBlue as the only major airlines in the United States to currently ban overbooking. United Airlines said that it would work to reduce overbooking, but has no plans to eliminate the practice completely.

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Southwest did not specify a timeframe for the policy change, but company officials acknowledged the decision would have a minor impact on revenue. The airline plans to offset some of the revenue hit by not having to compensate passengers on overbooked flights.

Officials did admit that the airline may still need to bump people sporadically if the airline substitutes a smaller plane for the one originally scheduled, for example.

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