Skift Take
Why let a seat go empty when you can make a little money on it? Perhaps because you’ll upset full-fare flyers who resent sitting next to a passenger who paid thousands less.
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Now, reverse auctions are something that Delta has toyed with for voluntary denied boarding compensation (“how much would it take for us to convince you to take a later flight, since yours is full?”).
But we haven’t seen auctions for upgrades. Until now.
Etihad has launched a new system where passengers will bid for their upgrades in an auction.