Why do airlines overbook flights and what happens if you are offloaded?

Selling more tickets than there are seats available on an aircraft strikes some people as an appalling business practice – bordering on fraud.

After all, theatres and sports venues don’t sell the same seat twice. So how can airlines justify trying to boost their profits at the travelling public’s expense?

In one celebrated case, Taylor Swift fan Megan Ridout was denied boarding a British Airways flight from London Heathrow to Lyon for the city’s gig in the Eras tour. BA turned her away from the plane and she made the concert only after an exhausting trek via Marseille.

Yet when handled correctly, overbooking makes good sense.

These are the key questions and answers.

200 seats on the plane? You sell 200 tickets. What’s wrong with that?

Airlines know from experience that on most flights, a proportion of passengers won’t turn up. So they place a bet that they can sell more tickets than there