Airline 1, Professor nil

It's not often that airlines get their own back on people who are 'no-shows, those people who are booked on a flight and then for whatever reason don't turn up. It is why airlines regularly overbook flights. Recently an American management professor developed an interesting strategy to get around what he perceived as the woeful lack of service being offered by the US airline industry. He had to take a trip to Birmingham, Alabama and apparently because so many of his earlier flights had been cancelled he booked a back-up flight on another airline; just to be on the safe side.

Come the day and come the air he got to the airport to find his flight was not operating on time. According to the Prof. he was told the original flight was cancelled because a crew was not available. He immediately went home had a good nights sleep and then got to the airport early the next morning to take the back-up flight. All was well until he tried to get a refund for his original flight, only to be told the airline had eventually found a crew and the flight took off a few hours late. The airline legitimately refused his request for a refund.