Flight booking

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A flight booking is the binding reservation of transport on a specific flight against payment. This is the prerequisite for the conclusion of a transport contract and the start of a flight - unlike, for example, in rail transport , where a journey can usually be started at short notice and a ticket can sometimes be purchased after the start of the journey.

The purchase of the flight ticket associated with the flight booking is tied to a specific connection; it is characterized by a flight date, a flight number and the corresponding flight route . A specific seat can usually only be reserved when the passenger checks in and receives the boarding pass that entitles them to board the aircraft . The reason for this is that it is often relatively late to determine which aircraft or aircraft type the airline will use for the specific flight.

The flight booking is possible in the following ways:

Reservation systems

Many airlines and travel agencies are connected to central computerized flight reservation systems. Four privately operated reservation systems with significant market share have established themselves worldwide . They are in alphabetical order: Amadeus , Galileo , Saber and Worldspan . These dominant positions can be associated with the disadvantage of the flight customer not always being offered the cheapest flights offered on the free market due to the terms and conditions between the travel agency or the airline and the reservation system ( oligopoly character of the reservation systems). In this respect, it is advisable to carry out your own price comparisons with the help of the Internet and, if necessary, to book the desired cheapest flight directly online with the provider company.

Rebooking & cancellation

Depending on the tariff or class selected , it is possible to rebook the ticket so that it is valid for another flight. This can be associated with costs, which must be noted in the booking conditions.

If a passenger cannot or does not want to take a booked flight, the airlines' conditions of carriage usually provide for a possibility of cancellation . Depending on the specific booking conditions, costs are incurred that can largely exclude repayment of the booking price. At least the German jurisprudence judges corresponding provisions in the context of a general terms and conditions control as ineffective if they also fail to reimburse that part of the ticket price that is attributable to taxes and fees that the airline saves as a result of denied boarding.

Waiting list (stand-by)

Is the passenger desired class of travel booked on a flight, it can be classified chronologically on a waiting list for scheduled flights. The inclusion in the waiting list does not yet entitle you to transport on the desired route. If passengers then withdraw from a confirmed booking or do not appear in time for check-in, the waiting list bookings will be confirmed in the order in which they were entered. This can often be done until shortly before departure. Frequent flyer customers are often given waiting list priority; that is, your waiting list booking is confirmed with priority.

Anyone who would like to take advantage of significant discounts from the respective airline can also be entered on such a waiting list by waiting for them at the airport until shortly before departure or hoping that a passenger plane is not fully booked. The traveler can thus book the respective flight at the airport on a stand-by basis. However, a stand-by booking is always associated with the risk that too many interested parties will be entered on the waiting list at short notice so that a seat is available for each candidate. A stand-by flight, however, should not be confused with the inexpensive last-minute offers, which can usually be booked a long time before departure, especially with charter airlines or tourism companies, sometimes even weeks in advance.

Overbooking

Since it happens again and again that passengers do not take a flight that has already been booked ( English no-show ), it is common for airlines to confirm more bookings for flights than there are seats available. This usage is based on observations and computer evaluations for the respective route. This means that on one flight route, for example , the overbooking can only amount to five percent of the available seat capacity, but on another 20 percent.

If a passenger with a confirmed flight cannot be taken on the flight he has booked, the airline is obliged to inform him

  • to offer the fastest possible replacement transport. If the flight starts within the EU or is operated by an airline based in an EU member state and ends within the EU, a passenger can alternatively request the reimbursement of the ticket price (Art. 4 Paragraph 3, Art. 8 Paragraph 1 Passenger Rights - Regulation of the EU , formerly EG ).
  • to provide compensation payments in accordance with Art. 7 Passenger Rights Regulation. This applies at least to overbooking connections with start or destination in the EU, associated countries or Switzerland to which the Passenger Rights Regulation applies.
  • to pay any additional compensation within the limits of the Montreal Convention .

In the US, airlines are also required to regularly report the number of overbooked passengers to the US Department of Transportation's consumer protection department . According to this, the number of denied boardings , i.e. passengers who are turned away in the event of an overbooking despite a claim to transportation, has been between 0.1 and 0.2 percent for the large US companies for many years. The majority of those affected voluntarily forego their seat in the booked aircraft and accept the airline's compensation offer. Nevertheless, around 0.006 percent of all passengers (6.2 per 100,000 travelers) were not carried in 2016, even though they insisted on their transport entitlement. The rate of involuntary denied boarding varies depending on the airline and in 2016 was between 0.5 per 100,000 travelers ( Hawaiian Airlines ) and 15 per 100,000 travelers ( ExpressJet Airlines ) for the large airlines .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Federal Court of Justice: judgment of March 20, 2018, X ZR 25/17. Retrieved June 7, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Regulation (EC) No. 261/2004 , accessed on October 22, 2017
  3. ↑ When is flight compensation excluded? And when not? In: Ersatz-Pilot Reiseblog . January 2, 2018 ( ersatz-pilot.de [accessed July 18, 2018]).
  4. ^ RA Dr. Philipp Roeckl: 8 rights in the event of a flight delay: what passengers are entitled to. In: Qamqam's lawyer blog. Accessed June 7, 2019 (German).
  5. ^ US Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics: Passengers Boarded and Denied Boarding by the Largest US Air Carriers , accessed May 17, 2017
  6. ↑ US Department of Transportation: Air Travel Consumer Report , March 2017, accessed May 17, 2017