Flawed logic
My flawed logic is that if a carrier sells 20% of its tickets on a fully exchangeable, fully refundable basis and on past experience 5% of passengers on the flight are "no shows", they are entitled to oversell on that basis, providing they are then prepared to take care of any customers who are inconvenienced. By "take care" of them I mean, book them onto another route, even with another carrier if necessary, offer vouchers or refund for the inconvience and a hotel if an overnight or extended stay is needed. I had this situation arise in Hong Kong with BA. BA booked me onto Virgin to get me home the same day, paid £200 compensation and I got to London 40 minutes later than originally scheduled. Ryanair never do these things, and if the Ryanair whisteblower who started this thread is to be believed, they concoct fake stories to try avoid any responsibility for their actions. Certainly, on the two occassions that Ryanair stranded me, it was impossible for them to "take care" of the passengers because they had absolutely no representatives on the ground who had any clue what was happening. On one occassion in Milan, the one person at the desk, pulled down the shutters at midnight in Milan Bergamo and started to leave. When stranded passengers demanded she stay and help the passengers who were the victim of the cancellation, she called the police and left the building under their escort. It is on this flawed logic that I conclude that legacy carriers who behave as I have just described can oversell, whereas low costs cannot.
While we are at it, and in a spirit of openness, can you tell us whether you work for Ryanair or have any association with the company? I would also recommend that you read the threads in Skytrax to read stories of people who have flown Ryanair, and are clearly making up stories of being stranded and lied to by the company. What is remarkable about these obviously made up horror stories is their consistency... and there are so many more of them than any other carrier. I wonder why?