The CBC reports that a Toronto woman,Vicki Russell, was bumped from an Air Canada flight taking her to a $10,000 Galapagos cruise after she had checked in and been given a boarding pass for her fully-paid fare. It makes compelling reading. But is it simply evidence again that the airline industry is so perilous that the business model can never be fixed? Airlines go broke, merge, create bargain-basement carriers and abuse their customers because the economics of flying are irrational. Overbooking isn’t a mean-spirited decision to hurt people, it’s a desperate act of survival. CBC
