You may one day find yourself being denied boarding on your flight – perhaps because the flight is overbooked or due to other operational issues. This can seriously affect your travel plans. An airline can only deny your boarding if:

• you volunteer to give up your ticket; or
• there aren’t enough volunteers to meet the airline’s circumstances.

Only if there are no volunteers to give up their ticket, an airline may deny you from boarding against your preference.

Regardless of whether you’ve volunteered or been involuntarily denied boarding, any denied boarding by the airline must take place before you board the aircraft. If you are denied boarding, the airline must offer you the choice of:

• Rerouting under comparable transport conditions, including meals, phone calls, internet access, and hotel accommodation with transport, if necessary, or
• A full refund of the ticket, inclusive of taxes and fees, in the original mode of payment within 30 days

The Consumer Protection Code’s First Schedule contains further details on the compensation you are entitled to.

Illustration – Denied boarding due to overbooking by the airline

Ali, having valid travel documents arrived at the airport 3 hours before the scheduled time of departure of his flight. However, he was denied boarding due to overbooking by the airline. What rights does he have?

• Overbooking is a situation where the airline has sold more tickets than the number of seats available for a particular flight. This is an industry norm practiced by most airlines around the world to avoid seat wastage and revenue leakage. When an overbooking situation occurs, the airline will usually call for volunteers to surrender their seats in exchange for benefits. If there are insufficient number of volunteers, the airline will have to deny the boarding of passengers and offer compensation or care in accordance with the Malaysian Aviation Consumer Protection Code 2016 (MACPC).
• In this case, the airline has to offer Ali a choice between:
  (i) Rerouting under comparable transport conditions, including meals, phone calls, internet access, and hotel accommodation with transport, if necessary, or
  (ii) A full refund of the ticket, inclusive of taxes and fees, in the original mode of payment within 30 days

For more information, please refer to the Malaysian Aviation Consumer Protection Code 2016 (MACPC) – Part III, Paragraph 11: Air Passenger’s Rights – Denied Boarding.

Illustration – Offloaded due to incomplete travel documentation

Ali is a Malaysian citizen with a confirmed reservation from Kuala Lumpur to Melbourne. At the check-in counter, he was offloaded boarding due to his expired visa and passport that has less than 6 months validity.

• It is the responsibility of the consumer to ensure that they have valid and complete travel documents before their travel.
• In this case, Ali failed to produce the necessary travel documents for his travel and the airline had to deny his travel. Ali will not be entitled to any compensation under the Malaysian Aviation Consumer Protection Code 2016 (MACPC).