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Appendix to opinion of the Court
Section 4—Compensation for Voluntary
Denied Boarding
4.0 Disclosure of policies
If an airline chooses to offer ticketed passengers incentives
to surrender their tickets on overbooked flights, the airline must clearly and conspicuously disclose all terms and conditions of the proposal—including any restrictions on offers of future air travel—to the person to whom the offer is made, and in the same manner in which the offer is made, before the person accepts the offer.
Comment: Federal regulations offer specific protections and certain rights to individuals who are involuntarily bumped from a flight. Airlines, however, are free to offer whatever compensation they want to people who voluntarily give up their seat on an airplane because of overbooking. For economic reasons, airlines prefer to offer vouchers good for free tickets on future flights, instead of cash compensation to these passengers.
While these vouchers may seem very attractive to a consumer who has the flexibility to wait for a later flight, many carry serious restrictions on their use or are subject to lengthy black out periods when they cannot be used.
This Guideline requires that airlines fully disclose any and all restrictions on offers for future air travel, before a consumer agrees to give up his or her seat. It does not, as several airlines and government agencies argued in their responsive comments, set any standards for the type of compensation that airlines must offer to these passengers.
CONCLUSION
Consumer dissatisfaction with the airline industry has reached crisis proportions. Federal agencies have focused their attention on airline scheduling problems, on-time performance, safety, and other related issues, but have not addressed airline advertising and frequent flyer programs. Un-
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