What is denied boarding compensation?
Denied boarding compensation is the payment an airline owes when it refuses to carry a passenger who holds a confirmed reservation, usually because the flight is oversold. In the United States and the European Union the amounts are set by regulation rather than by the airline.
Denied boarding compensation explained
The trigger is involuntary denied boarding. Airlines routinely ask for volunteers first and offer vouchers, and anything accepted at that stage is a negotiated deal rather than a regulated entitlement. The protected payment applies to passengers who are refused carriage without agreeing to it.
In the United States the rules sit with the Department of Transportation and scale with how late the airline gets you to your destination, calculated as a multiple of the one way fare up to a published ceiling. In the European Union the equivalent regulation sets fixed amounts by flight distance, and it applies to any flight departing the EU as well as flights arriving on an EU carrier.
Two conditions catch people out. You must hold a confirmed reservation and you must have presented yourself for check in within the airline's published deadline. Arriving after the cut off removes the entitlement entirely, however oversold the flight turned out to be.
Cancellations and long delays fall under separate provisions rather than under denied boarding, and the amounts and conditions differ. So does a downgrade, where a passenger moved from business class to economy is usually owed a proportion of the fare for that leg rather than a fixed denied boarding payment.
More on denied boarding compensation
No, not under the regulated scheme. Volunteering makes it a negotiated arrangement, so whatever you accept at the gate is the deal. The protected payment applies to passengers refused carriage involuntarily.
In the United States it scales with the delay to your destination as a multiple of the one way fare, up to a published ceiling. In the European Union it is a fixed amount tied to flight distance.
No. Delays and cancellations are covered by separate provisions with their own amounts and conditions. Denied boarding specifically covers being refused carriage on a flight you held a confirmed seat on.
A downgrade is treated differently from denied boarding. Passengers moved to a lower cabin are usually owed a proportion of the fare for that leg rather than the fixed denied boarding payment.
The rest of the glossary
See all 28 termsFlights and connections
Aircraft and cabins