Can Airline Legally Refuse Boarding for NO Reason?
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 1 Aug, 2023
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Yes unfortunately airlines can refuse boarding or remove a passenger from a plane for any reason at all. Even of the passenger has paid full fare for the ticket. Passengers do not have many rights when it comes to being on an airline.
In the United States, absolutely not. See, for example, 15 USC 45(a)(1) which says, “Unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce, and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce, are hereby declared unlawful.”.
I challenge anyone to argue with a straight face that contracting to provide a service and then failing to provide it in the manner expected for no reason whatsoever, causing harm to the consumer despite being able to avoid that harm, is not unfair. You would have to argue that the word “unfair” means nothing at all.
In fact, this perfectly meets the standards for unfairness because:
1) It causes harm to consumers.
2) Consumers cannot reasonably avoid the harm.
3) It is not outweighed by any countervailing benefit.
That is essentially the legal test for whether a business practice is unfair.
Regardless of what the contract says, United States law prohibits a business from adopting a practice that causes unavoidable harm to consumers unless there is some benefit from that practice that outweighs the harm. In effect, it prohibits businesses from being manifestly unreasonable.
Can Airline Legally Refuse Boarding for NO Reason?
Technically, yes because the aircraft is private property. However, they would still be bound by the Contract of Carriage. But, the conditions are so broad that they will argue that any reason is covered by the CoC.
Operationally, no, because any denied boarding has to be logged and a ‘reason’ noted. But, that ‘reason’ can be as nebulous as concern by the flight crew.
United contract of carriage has a list for
UA shall have the right to refuse to transport or shall have the right to remove from the aircraft at any point, any Passenger for the following reasons
including
Passengers who fail to comply with or interfere with the duties of the members of the flight crew,
Let me break this down to make it easier understand
Passengers who fail to comply with the members of the flight crew,
that is pretty close to “Simon says”. And since US federal regulations have similar wordings, all other US airlines will be happy to kick you off if you don’t do what the crew says (you might even get into prison for it).
With regard to the EU, yes.
The EU regulation (261/2004) acknowledges that a passenger can be denied boarding against their will and sets out the rights of the passenger to compensation and accommodation, but does not restrict the airline in reasons for denying boarding against the passengers will.
The regulation also sets out situations in which the airlines liabilities are limited.
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘
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