What Airlines Should Consider To Avoid Legal Issues When Navigating Reduced Flight Capacity During COVID-19

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, most industries have felt some sort of economic impact, the airline industry being no different. With somewhere between a fifty to seventy-five percent decrease in consumer demand for commercial air travel in 2020, most experts agree that it may take several more years for air travel to reach pre-COVID levels. Despite a decrease in the total number of commercial flights, certain issues have remained, even becoming exacerbated by the rapid fluctuation in flight frequency. One such issue is the mechanism by which airlines predict these novel irregularities in demand, oftentimes resulting in flights that may be half-empty, or conversely, flights that remain oversold – is called "bumping."