As oomis and sem613 point out, the seating could be pretty problematic, especially on the yeshiva/seminary flights.
The solutions “charter a flight” are not really feasible, while asking politely is someone would switch does not seem very onerous.
In this case, it is being reported on kikar hashabas that the 2 hour delay was actually caused by overbooking, and that there was also some seat changing and that is being used as a scapegoat.
As to the el-al incident, I read a blog posting by a self styled feminist activist who says she davka refused to switch just to make a point and davka got in their face about wanting to switch. One might imagine how the incident proceeded from there. (Agav, she asked how they would feel if a goy didn’t want to sit next to them. I would have answered that I’d switch quite quickly is the goy explained that otherwise he would spend much of the flight wondering if I was more attractive than his wife.)