A Study On The Legal Issues About Airline Overbooking

Currently, China’s civil aviation industry is in rapid development. According to the statistics from China’s National Bureau of Statistics, there were 440 million person-trips in 2015, up by 11.1% than the previous year. Air transportation is developing faster than other means of transportation. Such rapid development of civil aviation industry has led domestic airline companies to adopt flight overbooking strategy as their marketing tactics to gain more profit. However, the legislation in China regarding flight overbooking is inadequate so that when a passenger is denied board due to overbooking, there is no regulation to protect his rights. This dissertation works on the legal issues relating to airline overbooking. The main content of this dissertation includes as follows:Firstly, this article presents the development, current situation and major conflict of airline overbooking in China. Meanwhile, this part analyzes the judicial practice and administrative practice of disputes caused by airline overbooking. After that, it moves to illustrate the legal application of overbooking under the absence of legislation on airline overbookingSecondly, Disposing Specifications for Oversales of Public Air Transportation has come to effect on 15 th March, 2015. This industry standard was released by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, and it is the first document targeting on disposing specifications of airline overbooking in China. This article further analyzes the main content and legal effect of this standard. It also explains the shortage of this standard. And based on the national conditions of China and the experience and practice from the Europe and the U.S., this article makes some suggestions on the legislation on airline overbooking in China.Thirdly, since that the aviation industry and aviation law system in the Europe and the U.S. are comparatively advanced, this article further explains the legislation and practice on airline overbooking in the Europe and the U.S. which is significantly meaningful to China.Airline overbooking and denying board has been a legitimate practice long time age, and even the Civil Aviation Administration of China has acknowledged it as a special rule. Nevertheless, airline overbooking is sometimes regarded as a fraudulent conduct in China. The aim of this dissertation is to reveal the issues caused by the absence of legislation on airline overbooking in order to enhance the protection of passengers’ rights, reduce the conflicts between airline companies and passengers and propel the development of China’s civil aviation industry harmoniously.