Denied boarding and overbooking: your rights and compensation

Overbooking means the airline has sold more seats than the aircraft has. Denied boarding is what happens to the passengers left behind: the airline refuses to carry you although you hold a confirmed booking and presented yourself on time, at the time the airline set or, if none was set, no later than 45 minutes before departure (Article 3(2)).

It is not denied boarding if the airline has reasonable grounds to refuse you, such as health, safety or security reasons, or inadequate travel documents, like an expired passport or a missing visa (Article 2(j)).

Before refusing anyone, the airline must first call for volunteers willing to give up their seats in exchange for benefits agreed with them, such as a voucher, an upgrade on a later flight or a cash payment (Article 4(1)). Volunteers also get the choice between a refund and another flight.

If you volunteer, you get what you agreed to, not the regulation's compensation. Read the offer carefully: it may be worth less than the €250 to €600 you would be owed if you were refused against your will.

If there are not enough volunteers and you are refused boarding against your will, the airline must compensate you immediately (Article 4(3)), with no question of extraordinary circumstances: overbooking is the airline's own commercial choice.

You are also entitled to a refund of your ticket or another flight to your destination, and to care while you wait: meals and refreshments, two phone calls or emails and, if needed, a hotel and transport to it (Articles 8 and 9).

The amount depends on the distance: €250 up to 1,500 km; €400 for 1,500 to 3,500 km and for every flight over 1,500 km within the EU; €600 for longer flights between the EU and the rest of the world. If the airline puts you on another flight that gets you to your destination no more than 2, 3 or 4 hours late, depending on the distance, it may halve the amount (Article 7(2)).

Denied boarding is not limited to overbooking. The Court of Justice held that a passenger refused boarding because the airline reshuffled its flights after a strike is denied boarding and owed compensation (Finnair, C-22/11, 2012), and so is a passenger refused on a connecting flight because the airline wrongly assumed they would not make it in time (Rodríguez Cachafeiro, C-321/11, 2012).

If the airline puts you in a lower class than the one you paid for, it must refund part of the price of that flight within 7 days (Article 10): 30% for flights up to 1,500 km; 50% for flights within the EU over 1,500 km and other flights of 1,500 to 3,500 km; 75% for all other flights, including those between mainland Europe and the French overseas departments. If it moves you to a higher class, it may not charge you extra.

Compensation is usually not due when:

• the flight arrived less than 3 hours late;
• you were told about the cancellation at least 14 days before departure;
• the disruption was caused by extraordinary circumstances that could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken — for example severe weather, air traffic control restrictions, a security risk, or a strike by staff who do not work for the airline;

• Delayed flight
• Cancelled flight
• Strikes
• Refund or compensation
• EU261, the regulation
• Airlines