Excellent Posts, OzDude!
And Flame, I might add one thing to OzDude's nice and long post to you.
If a passenger has to be offloaded due to over-booking (as in this case) the airline will normally offer a certain amount of money (typically 50 or 100$ on a short-haul flight) to any passenger who will voluntarily disembark and wait for the next flight.
Normally there are
always passengers that volunteer for this option.
Actually last week I had a PAX on one of my flights who was offered a 100$ to offload. She got extremely pi$$ed and made a large fuss, when it turned out it was a seat for her anyway... ("But you
promised me a hundred dollars!!!")
Dunno if Ryanair makes such an offer, but I would guess they do. ...or?
OC.