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1 [1] (April 21, 2017)

handle is hein.crs/crsmthmbccd0001 and id is 1 raw text is: CRS INSIGHT Airline Passenger Denied Boarding: Rules and Regulations April 21, 2017 (1N10693) Related Author * Rahel Y Tng Rachel Y. Tang, Analyst in Transportation and Industry (rLan ra bc , 7-7875) The removal of a seated passenger from a full United Airlines flight on April 9, 2017, has spurred discussions about federal regulation of airline overbooking. Overbooking is a carrier's intentional acceptance of more reservations for a specific flight than the number of seats available on the aircraft. It is not illegal for airlines to overbook, and the practice occurs frequently. In many cases passengers are unaware that a flight is overbooked, because no shows or last-minute cancellations leave sufficient room for all ticketed passengers. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) does not regulate overbooking, aside from requiring airlines to tell passengers that a flight may be overbooked. Rather, federal regulations address oversale-an airline's failure to accommodate passengers holding confirmed reserved tickets on a flight because seats are not available. The aforementioned United flight may not have been overbooked; me-dia LtpDEL indicated that all ticketed passengers had been seated, suggesting that there was no problem arising from overbooking. However, once the carrier decided that certain passengers with confirmed reservations needed to give up their seats to make room for airline employees, the flight became oversold. This obligated the carrier to comply with the DOT oversales rule (14 C.F R. Part250, known as Part 250). Part 250 establishes minimum standards for the treatment of airline passengers holding confirmed reservations who are involuntarily denied boarding (bumped) due to an oversold flight. The rule does not address removal of seated passengers from an oversold flight, because this situation rarely occurs; in most cases, problems due to oversales are resolved in the gate area before passenger boarding. Part 250 was first issued in 1967 by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), which oversaw economic regulation of aviation in the prederegulation era. The 1967 regulation required that air carriers (1) establish priority rules and criteria for determining which passengers holding confirmed reserved space shall be denied boarding on an oversold flight; (2) with certain exceptions, provide denied boarding compensation equal to the value of the first remaining flight coupon, with a $25 minimum and a $200 maximum (approximately $185 and $1,476, respectively, in 2017 dollars, after inflation adjustment); (3) provide a written statement to the affected passengers explaining the terms, conditions, and limitations of the denied boarding compensation; and (4) file reports of unaccommodated passengers.