Has an airline ever bumped you off a flight? You need to know your options, and your rights.

© Karin Lau | Dreamstime.com

To most, the bump is a dance that went out with MC Hammer and his baggy pants. Among the airlines, though, the bump is still very much “in” — which means you stand a good chance of being put out.

How does this happen?

Airlines deliberately overbook their flights. They do it to compensate for passengers who fail to show up — and that actually used to make sense.

Let’s say Annoying Airlines has a flight from JFK to LAX on a 300-passenger jumbo jet. Their beancounters say that on average, 10 percent of those passengers won’t show up, so Annoying overbooks that flight by 10 percent.

Back when travelers reserved seats in advance but only paid at the airport, there might be lots of no-shows. Today, most folks reserve their seats and pay for them at the same time. They’re committed. But the airlines still play the overbooking game as if it were 1960.

This is how you get 330 people waiting to board a plane with 300 seats.

HOW NOT TO GET BUMPED
1) Choose wisely, Grasshopper
Some flights are more likely than others to be radically overbooked. Afternoon and evening flights, especially on Fridays and Sundays. Flights to big business destinations like New York, Washington DC, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles. Virtually any long-distance non-stop flight. Flights to popular destinations like Las Vegas or Orlando. Flights at either end of a big holiday season.

Keep those factors in mind when choosing your flights. If you’re using an airline that doesn’t charge you to speak to a reservations clerk by phone, call and ask their advice. Or ask a travel agent.

2)The EARLY bird flies
Make sure you check in no later than 30 minutes before takeoff. After that, the airline computer eats your reservation — and one of those overbooked passengers will be in your seat instead of you. Nowadays, airlines will let you check-in online — and even print out your boarding passes — 24 hours before your flight. So if you show up at the last minute, don’t expect a whole lot of sympathy.

Don’t expect a seat, either.

It gets worse. Due to the recession, the airlines have been mothballing airplanes, deliberately shrinking the number of available seats.

Overbooking on fewer planes means your airline could be “doing the bump” with you on your next trip.

Airlines don’t like burning expensive jet fuel on half-empty planes. I totally get that. But their coping methods can leave you stuck.

When it’s time to bump, airlines ask for volunteers to give up their seats in return for a later flight or other compensation that can range from vouchers for free future flights to cash. The federal government requires them to ask; you’re not required to accept. But if not enough volunteers step up, they can bump you off.

If they do, they have to tell you in writing how they choose which passengers to bump, and your rights after being bumped. Those are things you might want to ask your airline about before you get to the airport.

Above all, don’t get nasty with the airport staff. That just makes it easier for them not to help you.

POSTSCRIPT: The 60-minute Catch
You know that compensation we were talking about? Well,according to the folks at SmartMoney.com, there’s a catch:

“If the airline arranges substitute transportation that gets you to your destination within one hour of your original scheduled arrival time, there is no compensation. If you arrive an hour or more later, the airline is required to pay you, up to a maximum of $800, depending on the price of the ticket and length of delay, according to the (Department of Transportation’s) rules.”

These and other less-than-charming idiosyncrasies of the airline business (many of which we’ve already detailed elsewhere in this blog), can be found here.

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