Russian draft law provides penalties for overbooking in aviation. If a passenger who has paid an airplane ticket has no reserved place in the airplane, the carrier will need to return the amount multiplied by ten, envisaged a draft bill that Igor Ananskikh is planning to introduce. According to the author of the document, many Russian airlines are selling more tickets for their flights than the seats on board.
“Carriers estimate that, for example, 7-10% of passengers are generally late or cancel from the flight, which is the reason for carrier to sell more tickets”, said Igor Ananskikh. “When all passengers who bought tickets arrive for the flight, airlines offer surplus passengers to travel with the next airplane or return their money. This, however, causes inconvenience to the passengers who miss an important business meeting or fail their vacation”, added he.
Currently, there is no ban on overbooking and the procedure to receive compensations is pretty slow and time consuming.
Russian MP Igor Ananskikh is convinced that measures with such a weak effect will not overcome the problem and offer strong sanctions for overbooking. The tenfold compensation will break this practice, according to him.
Meanwhile, Russian airlines have long sought to legalize overbooking, which they believe is an anti-crisis measure. Carriers say the additional 2 to 3 tickets sold will reduce the risk of empty seats on board. A bill in this spirit was drafted by the transport ministry in 2015 but has remained at a public consultation stage.
