Legal Analysis On Domestic Flight Delay

Flight delay is the common phenomenon in the air transportation. It has always been a serious problem for all the carriers and passengers. For passengers, it brings lots of trouble and increases travel costs, even makes merchants miss business chances. For carriers, it influences the transportation service terribly and directly damages their business reputation and economic benefits.Dissensions caused by flight delay rise at times in our state. There are no provisions or detailed by laws in the existing law regarding definition of flight delay and duty reason and undertake the duty's way etc. In order to reduce the flight delay and protect the interest of the travelers, the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China promulgated Compensatory Guide Advice of Flight Delay (hereinafter called as Compensatory Guide Advice) in June 2004. However, the Opinions are only some relevant policies without legal effect. Moreover, in actual life the parties do not understand the relevant nature and the liabilities so well, carriers are not willing to perform their duties and passengers cannot present proper claims, so the disputes never stop. Therefore, the key point is to make sure the legal nature and liabilities of flight delay.On the analysis of the flight delay's prescriptions which is mentioned in the International flight law and the existing Civil aviation law regarding definition of flight delay, there are a large number of elements that can cause flight delay, such as weather, mechanical bug, air control, overbooking etc. And the flight delays caused by these elements can be classified into two types: reasonable delay and unreasonable delay. According to the specialization of the air transportation contract, this article clarifies the liabilities of reasonable delay and unreasonable delay and the range of compensation. Through the introduction and analysis of the regulations on flight delay in U.S.A and EU and other foreign flight companies'solutions about the flight delay, it shows that take man as the foundation is the core of scientific concept of development. Whether or not to implement this point of view is an important symbol of a flight company to establish and perfect its modern business system. This article gives the legal suggestions on how to deal with domestic flight delay. Firstly, the author suggests that unify the definition of the"flight delay", clarify the dividing of reasonable delay and unreasonable delay strictly, and to regulate the related"overbooking"rules. Secondly, the author thought to enactment and carry out the policy to settle the flight delay, to modify the shortcomings of the Compensatory Guide Advice, and to supervise how the flight company settles the flight delay problem. All in all, the administration of justice or confirmation of the duty can be carried out by law, reduce the cost and it is better to protect both the passenger's and carrier's legal rights.