The “Adjustable-curtain” Strategy: Overbooking of Multiclass Service

The “adjustable-curtain” strategy, now commonly practiced by many airline companies, refers to a strategy where the airline adjusts the size of the business-class section of the aircraft shortly before boarding takes place. This strategy enables the carrier to deny boarding of economy-class passengers in an event of a high show-up of business-class (high-paying) passengers by simply enlarging the business-class section at the expense of the economy-class section (and of course, the other way around, in a case of a low show-up of business passengers). This paper develops a simple method of computing a profit-maximizing reservation policy which determines the number of business- and economy-class bookings taking into account that the adjustable-curtain strategy will be utilized prior to boarding. Received July 27, 2001; revised version received October 5, 2001