MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Beware winter travellers: Chile’s airline overbooking “is permitted and habitual practice”

Rodrigo Hananías, lawyer for the Chilean Airline Association (ACHILA)

If you’re planning to take a flight around Chile this winter, you may want to get to the airport early. Otherwise, you may discover that the airline overbooked your flight and there are no seats left.

July and August are the busiest months of the year for airlines and they also mark the prime season for complaints of overbooking.

El Mercurio reports that Chile’s airline overbooking policies are much less customer-friendly than policies in other countries, including Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, the United States and the countries of the European Union.

“Overbooking is a permitted and habitual practice,” Rodrigo Hananías, the lawyer for the Chilean Airline Association (ACHILA), said. “The practice is meant to compensate for ‘no shows,’ people who reserve flights, but do not ever board the flight.”

If all of the passengers booked on a flight arrive at the airport to check in, the last passengers who show up will be “bumped” to the next flight. Alternately, the passenger can choose to cancel their flight and receive a refund.

For most of the year, the problem is limited, as prediction models are fairly accurate in estimating the percentage of seats that will not be taken. In July and August, however, summer vacations in the Northern Hemisphere overlap with winter vacations and the height of ski season in Chile, increasing the volume of travellers and making predictions less reliable.

In Colombia, legislation passed in 2001 forbids airlines from overbooking more than 5% of seats during the peak season and 10% during the year. Other countries have mandated that airlines compensate customers for the inconvenience.

In Mexico, the airline must offer compensation of at least 25% of the ticket price in addition to offering a complete refund or a seat on the next available flight.

Other countries scale compensation with the distance travelled or the amount of additional time that passengers must wait. In the US, compensation can be as high as US$800. In the EU, compensation can range from US$350 to more than US$800.

In Chile, there are no limits to overbooking and compensation is not mandated.

Attempts in 2007 to regulate overbooking and mandate similar compensations to the EU failed as the industry successfully argued that overbooking allows airlines to keep prices lower for customers.

For now, if passengers are bumped to a later flight, the airline must only cover the cost of waiting. Airlines might, for instance, offer money to pay for phone calls and a voucher to pay for dinner at the airport if a customer had been expecting to eat dinner on the plane.

If customers are looking for compensation in Chile, they must either take their case to the airline in question or directly to the courts.

By Benjamin Schneider – The Santiago Times