Overbooked flight: what to do when the airline denies boarding

An overbooked flight is a choice the airline made in advance. If there are more confirmed passengers than seats, they are supposed to ask for volunteers first. If you still have a valid ticket, you checked in on time, and they refuse to board you anyway, that is involuntary denied boarding. In the EU and the UK it carries a fixed sum, a new flight or a refund, and care while you wait.

Volunteer is a deal. Denied boarding is a right.

When the agent asks who will take a later flight for a voucher, you are negotiating. The voucher can be generous or insulting. You can ask for a confirmed seat on a named flight, a hotel if it is overnight, and meals. You can also say no.

The moment they stop asking and start picking, the regulation takes over. Involuntary denied boarding compensation, if the replacement gets you in late, follows the same distance bands as a cancellation:

• €250 / £220 up to 1,500 km
• €400 / £350 for the middle band
• €600 / £520 over 3,500 km

The long-haul figure can be halved if the replacement arrives less than four hours late, or two hours late on the shorter bands. The airline is supposed to pay, or at least set the payment out in writing, at the airport. A leaflet and a shrug is not the same thing. Ask for the written notice of your rights. They have to provide one.

What to do at the gate, in order

1. Confirm you are being denied boarding, not merely delayed. The words matter.
2. Ask whether they still want volunteers. A better volunteer offer can beat the statutory sum if the voucher is real money and the later flight is painless.
3. If you are bumped anyway, ask for the compensation figure in writing, plus the reroute or the refund.
4. Do not surrender the boarding pass. Photograph it.
5. If they will not pay on the spot, note the staff name, the time, and the flight number. The claim does not die in the jet bridge.

What does not count as denied boarding

Arriving at the gate after check-in closed is your problem. So is a document the airline warned you about: a visa, a passport that fails their rule, a health form. Being offloaded because the aircraft is weight-restricted, or because you were disruptive, is argued differently from a straight oversale. Overbooking means they sold the seat twice, not that the captain refused you.

AirHelp handles denied-boarding files the same way as delays: no fee unless they recover money. The standard cut is 35%, from their published fees, VAT inside that number. Check an overbooking claim with AirHelp if the airport payment never arrived and you do not want a two-month correspondence. If you would rather write the letter yourself, the checklist is in how to claim flight compensation.

The legal text is still EC 261. The practical UK version is the CAA's delay and cancellation guidance, which covers denied boarding in the same place.

Questions at the podium

They offered €200 in vouchers. The route is short-haul. Should I take it?

The statutory figure is €250 in cash, plus the replacement flight. A €200 voucher is a worse deal unless the voucher spends like cash on something you already needed and you are happy to fly later.

I volunteered. Can I claim afterwards?

Usually the agreement you accepted is the whole payment. Read it before you hand the seat over.

They put me on a flight that arrived 90 minutes late.

On the shorter bands, arrival less than two hours late can remove the compensation. You should still have been offered the choice of a refund.