actually having to pay off extra passengers can get expensive, up to 10k per seat, so even one willing passenger without a seat is a loss, but they accept that possibility based on a curve over time of profit across all flights calculated on historical outcomes. Some flights will be overbooked and they accept that as the cost of making sure that other flights are more filled

The reason they overbook is that there is no human way to seamlessly transfer ticket ownership between pass holders down to the moment of boarding, across all venues and services where the tickets are sold.

NFTs add a platform that is universal, secure, and publicly accessible. No other database offers that