航班超售被拒绝登机：能拿到什么补偿

English

Bumped from an Overbooked Flight: Your Rights in China

When an overbooked flight has more passengers than seats, the airline must first look for volunteers willing to give up their seats, and only then decide who is denied boarding — with compensation, services and written proof as required.

• Volunteers first: Article 44 of the Provisions on Public Air Transport Passenger Services requires the carrier or its ground handler to look for passengers willing to give up their seats through a volunteer solicitation procedure when overbooking leaves more passengers than seats. Without that procedure, the priority boarding rules may not be used to decide who is denied boarding.
• Negotiated terms: Article 45 requires the carrier to negotiate the conditions of giving up a seat with volunteers. If you volunteer, you can discuss rebooking timing and the form of compensation.
• Priority rules: Article 46 requires those rules to respect public order and good morals and to take account of vulnerable passengers — the elderly, children, the sick, pregnant women and passengers with disabilities — as well as onward connections. They may only be applied once not enough volunteers have come forward.
• Compensation and services: Article 47 requires compensation and related services for passengers denied boarding in line with the carrier's overbooking rules. The standards, methods and service levels must be published in the carrier's general conditions of carriage (Article 43).
• Proof and ticketing: Article 48 requires written confirmation of volunteering or being denied boarding on request. Article 49 applies Articles 24(1) and 25, so involuntary refunds carry no refund fee, and refunds must be completed within seven working days of a valid request (Article 26).

What is not overbooking: arriving at the counter after check-in has closed is a missed flight, not a denied boarding caused by overbooking. Under Article 29, passengers must check in, drop bags and obtain a boarding document before the carrier or its ground handler closes check-in. Where the carrier caused the missed flight, Article 34 applies the involuntary change and refund rules; where the cause was outside the carrier's control, the ticket conditions apply.

Refusal of carriage is a separate matter: Article 31 lists the cases in which a carrier must refuse carriage, including passengers or items prohibited by state regulations, passengers who refuse security screening, baggage that has not been screened, and passengers whose identity document at check-in differs from the one used to buy the ticket. These cases are not overbooking, but if the passenger asks for a written explanation the carrier must provide one promptly (Article 32).

Complaints: disputes can be raised with the carrier, the airport operator, the ground handler, the sales agent or the booking platform, and also with the civil aviation authorities (Article 50). Companies must issue a result including a proposed solution within ten working days of receiving a complaint (Article 52). The civil aviation service quality supervision hotline is 12326.

The above is a summary of key points only. Please refer to the official announcement for the authoritative version.