All airlines do this... at least all USA airlines.
Hotels do it too -- in the 90's I worked for a hotel chain and helped integrate an airline vendor's revenue management system into the hotels central reservation system. Just like the airlines, hotels use past booking and seasonality/special event data to figure out how much to charge for rooms and how much to overbook to maximize revenue. Prior to the software, hotel managers did it manually.
Pretty much every industry that sells products subject to spoilage does it too -- a grocery store determines how much bread to order to avoid throwing away spoiled bread that didn't sell before it spoiled while avoiding running out (the equivalent of overbooking - the consumer wants it but can't have it). But grocery stores and airlines have the opposite problem - airlines can't control supply (in the short term), they have a fixed amount of product to sell so they primarily use pricing to control demand. Grocery stores control supply (within reason) so if demand changes, they can just order more or less product (but they can also alter pricing).
Hotels do it too -- in the 90's I worked for a hotel chain and helped integrate an airline vendor's revenue management system into the hotels central reservation system. Just like the airlines, hotels use past booking and seasonality/special event data to figure out how much to charge for rooms and how much to overbook to maximize revenue. Prior to the software, hotel managers did it manually.
Pretty much every industry that sells products subject to spoilage does it too -- a grocery store determines how much bread to order to avoid throwing away spoiled bread that didn't sell before it spoiled while avoiding running out (the equivalent of overbooking - the consumer wants it but can't have it). But grocery stores and airlines have the opposite problem - airlines can't control supply (in the short term), they have a fixed amount of product to sell so they primarily use pricing to control demand. Grocery stores control supply (within reason) so if demand changes, they can just order more or less product (but they can also alter pricing).