Airline Complaints Soar Higher In March

Frequent flyers likely don't need the stats to back this up. But the Department of Transportation says it received more complaints against airliners from consumers in March than in the previous month or in March of 2014.

CNBC reports complaints about service in the first quarter jumped 17.1 percent. Passengers on Frontier Airlines were 34 times more likely to complain than passengers on Southwest, which has the lowest complaint rate. Hawaiian Airlines ranked best.

At the same time, the rate of passengers being bumped, or involuntarily denied boarding, increased to 1.06 passengers per every 10,000 flying.

Getting bumped from a flight for which you have a reservation seems to be about the most frustrating thing you could imagine. So how does it happen?

Carriers looking to maximize a profit have long made it a practice to oversell flights. They say the overbooking of flights is necessary because a certain percentage of flyers cancel trips or change their travel plans at the last minute. Airlines say they can't afford to waste potential revenue and leave seats empty, so they overbook flights.

Airline executives might need a refresher course on reservations from Seinfeld: