What to do in case of denied boarding?
There is denied boarding when an air carrier decides to sell more tickets than seats in the plane. Almost every flight have “no show” passengers. They are those who although have confirmed booking but do not show up for the flight. The airlines then sell more to fill their planes. This practice is legal.
This means than an airline can deny boarding to passengers against their will. However, the carrier must first make a call to volunteerism. If you volunteer, you can choose between re-routing or the refund of your ticket. It is, therefore, impossible to get any compensation for the damage suffered.
As air passenger, you have rights
The first thing to know is that you have rights and these rights aim to ensure a high level of protection for passengers suffering of an overbooked flight. As a matter of fact, in 2004, the European legislator has set up a legislative arsenal in order to protect in a better way air passengers traveling in and outside of the European Union.
The EU Regulation is applicable to all worldwide airlines when departure takes place within the European Union (EU) and, in the case of flights from outside the EU to a destination within the EU, only to airlines licensed in an EU member state
The EU Regulation does not provide a time limit for make a claim
This means that you can make a claim with RefundMyTicket for flights that occurred 4 or even 6 years ago. It is therefore not necessary that your claim concerns a recent flight.
Indeed, the European Regulation 261/2004 does not provide in its provisions of the limit period for make a claim in case of cancellation, delay or denied boarding. The legislature provides instead that these issues should be left to the discretion of the respective Member States.
What can you get from the airline in case of denied boarding against your will?
Whether the denied boarding is voluntary or not, the air carrier shall offer to you a choice between a re-routing under comparable transport conditions to your final destination or a reimbursement within seven days of the full cost of the ticket. Moreover, the airline shall provide passengers with care and assistance. So, you can ask for meals or refreshments as hotel accommodation and transport. In addition, passengers shall also be offered free of charge two telephone calls, telex or e-mails.
Nevertheless, it is important that you keep the invoice of additional costs generated by the denied boarding such as meals or refreshments in order to be refunded by the operating carrier. Indeed, we often see that airlines derogate from their obligations of care and assistance.
Finally, you should know that you can also get a compensation. The amount varies depending on the distance of your journey. A passenger can obtain up to 600€. But from experience, the chance for success of an individual attempt carried out by a passenger in order to get a compensation are almost nonexistent. This is why you should not hesitate to use the services offered by RefundMyTicket.
About RefundMyTicket
Only 5% of eligible passengers claim their rights. Others, often misinformed or discouraged by multiple of obstacles just give up. And so, it is more than 1.7 million of passengers that annually abandon € 500 million to the airline companies. Nearly €5 billion unclaimed since the introduction of the EU legislation n°261/2004.
At RefundMyTicket, we are determined to enforce the rights of passengers around the world. So, our mission is to help passengers get their money back for delayed, cancelled or overbooked flight. In that regard, we take the necessary steps to obtain the refunds due by the airline companies, in line with the regulatory framework currently in force