Your flight
was overbooked

If you have presented yourself on time for the check-in with a valid flight reservation and travel documentation and you’re denied boarding due to overbooking of the flight or for operational reasons, and you don’t voluntarily give up your seat, you are entitled to:

• Flight compensation
• the right to choose between reimbursement, re-routing or rebooking at a later stage and
• assistance (care services) from the airline

As soon as you have chosen one of these three options, you no longer have rights in relation to the other two options. However, the airline may still have to provide compensation depending on the distance of your flight and the length of the delay past your original planned arrival time.

• If the airline does not comply with its obligationto offer re-routing or return under comparable transport conditions at the earliest opportunity, it has to reimburse your flight costs.
• If the airline does not offer you the choice between reimbursement and re-routing but decides unilaterally to reimburse your original ticket, you are entitled to an additional reimbursement of the price difference with the new ticket (under comparable transport conditions).
• If you booked an outbound and a return flight separately with different airlines and the outbound flight is cancelled, reimbursement is only due for the cancelled flight.

However, if the outbound and return flights are operated by different airlines, but were part of a single reservation, in the event that the outbound flight was cancelled, you have the following rights:

• Compensation

A choice between the reimbursement of your entire ticket (outbound and return flights) or re-routing on another flight for the outbound flight.

• If you reach your final destination with a delay of 3 hours or more you are entitled to compensation if the delay is not caused by extraordinary circumstances.
• If you miss a connecting flight traveling within the EU or outside the EU on a flight originating from an EU country, you should be entitled to compensation, if you arrive at your final destination with a delay of more than 3 hours. It is not relevant if the carrier operating the connecting flights is an EU or non-EU airline.
• If you depart from a non-EU country to your final destination in an EU country, with connecting flights operated successively by non-EU and EU airlines or by EU airlines only, only the flights operated by EU airlines are taken into consideration for the right to compensation in case of a long delay on arrival at the final destination.
• You are not entitled to compensation if you miss connecting flights due to delays at security checks or if you did not respect the boarding time of your flight at the airport of transfer.
• If you accept a flight to a different airport from the one in the original booking and it arrives late, you’re entitled to compensation. The time of arrival used for calculating the delay is the time of arrival at the airport mentioned in the original booking or the destination agreed upon with the airline. Transport costs between the alternative airport and the one in the original booking or agreed destination should be borne by the airline.

Extraordinary circumstances – Delay

Extraordinary circumstances can lead to more than one cancellation or delay at the final destination. Examples of events defined as extraordinary circumstances are air traffic management decisions, political instability, adverse weather conditions and security risks.

Situations which are not considered as extraordinary circumstances include:

• most technical problems which come to light during aircraft maintenance or are caused by failure to maintain an aircraft
• collision of mobile boarding stairs with an aircraft

Any strike that affects the operation of the airline may be considered as extraordinary circumstances. However, to be exempted from paying compensation, the airline must prove that: i) there is a link between the extraordinary circumstances and the delay or the cancellation, and ii) the delay or cancellation could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken.

If the airline does not provide you with a satisfactory explanation, you can contact your national authority for further assistance.

Assistance (care services) in the event of denied boarding due to overbooking

It’s obligatory to every Airline company to offer and provide passenger with assistance, free of charge, while passenger is waiting. In the event of travel disruption, you must make yourself identified to the airline, to avoid a scenario wherever you have arrange care services by yourself. Airline company should additionally guarantee, wherever obtainable, that accommodation is accessible for people with disabilities and their service dogs. Assistance (care services) includes:

• Rights to have Food and drinks during waiting period.
• Rights to make 2 Telephone calls & use Internet.
• Rights to have Accommodation during waiting time in case of overnight stay and transfers to and from the airport

If assistance is not offered and you have paid by yourself for meals and refreshments etc., the airline company should reimburse you, provided the expenses were necessary, reasonable and appropriate, according to receipts for this purpose, which you should keep and represent to airline company to confirm your expenses. You only have the right to assistance as long as you have to wait for re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to your final destination at the earliest opportunity or a return flight. In exceptional cases, the airline may decide to limit or decline assistance if it would cause further delay to passengers waiting for an alternative or a delayed flight.