When you buy an airline ticket you are actually only buying a ticket from point A to point B but not at a specfic time or date

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  Should Overbooking Flights Be Illegal?

  Time via Yahoo! News11 hours ago
  TIME: Should overbooking be illegal? Charles Leocha: If overbooking is made illegal, ticket prices are going to go up. The airlines normally do a pretty ...

Many people are under the impression that when they buy an airline ticket, they are purchasing a seat on the plane. What are people actually paying for?
They’re paying for transportation from Point A to Point B. And the way that the airline contracts of carriage are written, they’re not even paying for transportation to get them there at the right time. Or the same day. They’re just getting the best efforts of the airlines. The airlines don’t want a lot of people sitting at the airport - that doesn’t serve good business purpose. But in the contract, you’re really just buying transportation from Point A to Point B.