Overbooking and denied boarding

back to air travel

'Overbooking' is when airlines take more reservations for a flight than there are seats on the plane. This is not illegal. Airlines do it deliberately because they usually expect some of the passengers not to turn up. Usually it there are no problems, but occasionally too many people turn up for a flight, so some of them get left behind (or "bumped").

If you are "bumped" off a flight at an airport in the EU or at an airport outside the EU when flying to an EU airport on an EU airline, then the airline must pay you compensation. This is called Denied Boarding Compensation (or 'DBC'). The rules for payment of DBC are set out in EC Regulation 261/2004.

To be entitled to compensation three conditions need to be satisfied:

You must have a valid ticket;
You must have a confirmed reservation;
You must have checked-in by the deadline given to you by the airline.

If you can meet these conditions the airline must compensate you in three ways.

Refund or re-routing – you have the choice between a refund of the ticket or of re-routing to your final destination. You are not entitled (under EC Regulation 261/2004) to reimbursement of any other components of your trip such as hotel and transfer costs.

Compensation – the airline must also pay you compensation in cash, cheque or bank transfer. (You can accept vouchers instead of cash if you want to but you don't have to):

Length Of Journey	Delay To Destination	Compensation
Up to 1500km	Up to 2 hours	€125
Up to 1500km	More than 2 hours	€250
1500km to 3500km	Up to 3 hours	€200
1500km to 3500km	more than 3 hours	€400
More than 3500km	Up to 4 hours	€300
More than 3500km	More than 4 hours	€600

(Compensation should be paid in local currency depending on the exchange rate)

Incidental Expenses - Free meals and refreshments as well as two free phone calls/emails/faxes should also be provided when waiting for the re-routed flights. In the event of re-routing when the flight is the next day, free accommodation should be provided by the airline.

If you have volunteered to surrender your reservation on an overbooked flight, this must be in exchange for benefits under conditions to be agreed between you and the carrier. This might be in the form of vouchers. In addition to this you will have the choice between a refund of the ticket or of re-routing to your final destination.

If you are in a dispute with an Airline we would always recommend contacting them first with details of your problem, to allow them the opportunity to resolve the situation. In order to help you the European Commission has created an EU Complaint Form for Air Passengers, we would recommend completing this form and sending it to the airline.

If you do not receive a reply, or a positive response, please feel free to contact us with a copy of the completed EU Complaint Form for Air Passengers, having this completed form will allow us to deal with your complaint more effectively.

The UK European Consumer Centre has available a free newsletter, “UK ECC – your update”. The aim of the newsletter is to provide you, the consumer, with a flavour of what the UK ECC does, provide examples of cases we have been working on and, more importantly, provide you with the best advice on cross-border shopping. Please use the link below to subscribe to our newsletter.