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.
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.