Southwest Airlines plans to end the common industry practice of overbooking flights in the coming months, CEO Gary Kelly said Thursday morning.

"We're seriously reconsidering that practice. I've made the decision and the company's made the decision that we'll cease to overbook going forward," Kelly said during an appearance on CNBC. "The last thing that we want to do is deny a customer their flight. We're going to work very hard to eliminate as many pain points for travel ... as possible."

It's a major shift in policy for the Dallas-based carrier less than a month after United Airlines became the target of international outrage after a paying passenger was forcibly dragged off a full flight.

Although the United Airlines incident wasn’t technically an overbooking situation — the passenger was removed to make room for employees traveling for work — the practice of selling more tickets than there are seats on a plane has become closely scrutinized in its wake.

It’s a common tactic employed by airlines to account for passengers who don’t show up for a flight despite having booked a ticket. For airlines, overbooking means a bit of extra revenue, which executives argue makes its way back to passengers in the form of lower fares.

"The reason we overbook is to try to fill empty seats," Kelly said Thursday. "To the extent that we’re able to do that, we can keep the rest of our fares lower."

Kelly expanded upon the company's reasoning in a Thursday earnings call with analysts, adding that the company uses overbooking modestly and has seen the rate of no-shows drop over the last 20 years.

"On a 143-seat airplane, we might overbook by one," he said. "I never get complaints from our customers about overbooking. ... I'm not saying there aren't complaints, don't get me wrong. But it's just not an issue the way the company has been managing (it)."

Still the company has been taking steps over the past several years to prepare it for a time when it no longer overbooks, Kelly said. He didn't lay out an exact timeline for when the practice would end, but said it would likely occur before the end of the second quarter in June.

A Southwest spokeswoman said better forecasting tools and the upcoming launch of a new reservations system make it easier for the airline to manage its inventory of seats without overbooking.

There's still a chance passengers could be bumped from a full flight — for instance, if a smaller plane is swapped onto a route at the last minute due to mechanical issues or weather.

But it "will happen much less frequently because overbooking to customers in advance will be off the table as a consideration," the company said.

Analysts participating in Thursday's earnings call didn't seem too worried about the change. They asked no questions about the new overbooking policy, instead focusing on the company's cost trends and plans for growth.

The company's chief financial officer, Tammy Romo, said the change would have a minimal impact on the company's finances and is already baked into the revenue guidance the company is providing to investors. She said some of the cost savings — presumably from not having to compensate overbooked passengers — would help balance out any lost revenue.

Southwest had the highest rate of involuntary denied boardings — that is, when an overbooked passenger is denied a seat against his or her will — of any major carrier in 2016, according to Department of Transportation statistics.

The carrier involuntarily denied boarding to 14,979 passengers, about 0.01 percent of all the passengers it carried in 2016. An additional 88,628 Southwest passengers voluntarily took a later flight in exchange for compensation last year.

Southwest’s decision is the strongest action taken yet in the wake of United’s incident, which resulted in the passenger, Dr. David Dao, suffering facial injuries.

United Airlines announced 10 policy changes Thursday stemming from the incident, including an increase in the incentives offered to overbooked passengers to up to $10,000.

Delta announced a similar increase in maximum overbooking compensation, while American and United have said law enforcement officers won’t be used to remove paying passengers seated on a plane unless there’s a safety or security threat.

But no carrier has gone so far as to do away with the practice of overbooking entirely.

Kelly acknowledged Thursday that the United incident affected the timing of the announcement and put the practice of overbooking under a "bright light."

"I'll be honest with you. It wasn't on my list this month to work on," Kelly said. "'Why not do it now?' I would ask. We’re ready to do it."