Despite United Airlines' high-profile blunder in yanking a passenger from a full flight, the odds of getting bumped from your next flight on a U.S. carrier are very small.

But a lot depends on which airline you choose to fly.

Faced with slim profit margins on each ticket sold, the airline industry routinely sells some seats twice, based on the odds that some passengers won't show up.



Some airlines apparently do a much better job of calculating those odds than others, based on a review of Department of Transportation statistics on what the industry refers to as "denied boardings."

Over the past four years, roughly a half-million flyers a year have been bumped from a flight on a major U.S. carrier — out of a total of about 615 million passengers flown each year. And 9 out of 10 of those who were bumped got off the plane voluntarily, usually in response to a cash incentive or a voucher good for future travel.