How to fix this problem:
1. Hand out prefilled in vouchers/checks to all the passengers with the amount filled in, which become valid when redeemed at the counter. There's an irrational human thing that people hate losing something they have more than they like gaining something[1], so helping to feel like they are losing the $800 voucher by not redeeming it would be more beneficial. I imagine that having the (fake) voucher/check in their hand would increase voluntary rates by a lot (and lower the compensation the airlines would need to pay), while only increasing some paper printing costs.
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Other ideas
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1b. Add in language during ticket purchase saying "To keep prices low, bla bla bla, 1 in 20,000 passengers may be unable to fly. Purchase protection from this event for $1". The passengers that don't purchase that protection would then be eligible for denied boarding, but at least they had more of a choice. Although, it still feels like "guaranteed seat" should just be included by default when you purchase a ticket (as I type this, it feels insane that "guaranteed seat" would be an upsell... but that seems to be the case).
1c. Offer more in compensation to passengers (obvious). This is not like eminent domain, where you need 100% of people in a given area to agree to something. You only need 4/100 passengers to agree to something, it truly can work like an auction.
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Other thoughts
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1. Everyone is blaming United for this event, but is there a different US airline who this event couldn't have happened to? They all have involuntary boardings, and presumably if you choose not to go peacefully, the airline will involve law enforcement. The only reason people leave peacefully when they don't want to is because they know the airline has the ultimate physical control.
2. Jimmy Kimmel mentioned it, but you just cannot imagine this happening in any other industry. Being kicked out of a restaurant table after being seated, being kicked out of a hotel room just checked into, etc.
3. The management of United seems completely out of touch with sentiment and reality, given their statements. Using the word "re-accomodate" in a three sentence statement seems like a symptom of a larger problem... it should have been obvious how people would react to that. I believe they are so deep into their philosophy of "this is how the industry works" that they have lost sense of the bigger customer picture. It's really as simple as: He bought a confirmed ticket with real money->boarded the plane->told ticket is no longer valid and kicked off. No amount of industry financial rationalization will change that.
4. This is still a rare issue, only about 1 in 15,000 flyers in the US is involuntarily denied boarding[2]. That said, United has 5x the rate as Delta, so this problem is not inherently terrible everywhere in the industry. Worth noting that this flight was operated by Republic, not United.
--Citations--
[1] https://hbr.org/2016/05/why-buyers-and-sellers-inherently-di...
[2]http://6331-presscdn-0-25.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/u...
