Liability For Breach Of Contract For Overbooking Of Air Carriers

As far as overbooking is concerned,the behavior of overbooking is not must lead to break the contract.Only when passengers are refused to board,the carrier is break the contract,and to bear the corresponding liability for breach of contract.In practice,when passengers are relieved by judicial means after being refused to be loaded,they often choose the provisions of Consumer Rights Protection Law which constitute fraud and the content of breach of contract liability established in Contract Law as the basis.In fact,the carrier's overbooking behavior does not satisfy the elements of the subjective intention of fraud,so it does not constitute fraud.However,the carrier's act of overbooking and refusing to carry constitutes a breach of contract.According to the content of the air transport contract,the carrier should promptly and safely deliver the passengers to the destination.Therefore,for passengers who are rejected for overbooking,the airline has not fulfilled its contractual obligations according to the agreement,violated the contractual obligations,and there is no general defenses in the whole process.Therefore,the act of overbooking and refusing to load by air carriers will inevitably constitute a breach of contract.Then about the selection of rejected passengers,carriers usually depend on the order of check-in procedures,however,it lacks flexibility.After overbooking occurs,first,the carrier should inform the passengers of the overbooking,then start the volunteer recruitment process.If not enough volunteers are recruited,it is necessary to synthesize a variety of selection criteria to screen passengers who refuse to carry passengers.After choosing the rejected passengers,the carrier should take some remedial measures to reduce the damage,usually including ticket changes and refund.When these remedies are insufficient to compensate for the loss of passengers,the carrier should also compensate for the unrecoverable loss,and the scope of compensation should only include the direct loss of passengers.excluding moral damage or punitive damages caused by fraud.In addition,if the passenger is at fault for the loss,the carrier's liability for the loss caused by the passenger's fault should be limited.