I think I have found the true definition of “hope springs eternal”:
You can see at the top that there are zero seats available for upgrades on this plane. (There are 24 total first class seats on the plane.) But there are 35 people waiting for those zero seats! So, if none of the original 24 people show up AND the airline clears the upgrade list AND then ten of those people don’t show up, then the highlighted person on the bottom of the list will clear. That is a true optimist!
(The nerds in the audience will point out that airlines add people automatically to the upgrade list and so the last person on the list probably took no action to get on the list. Blah blah blah. The point is that someone, either the passengers or the IT guys are the airline, were optimistic and hopeful that it would be necessary to add this many people to the list. Nerd.)