No C 31/28 Official Journal of the European Communities 6. 2. 91 
Opinion on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EEC) on common rules for a denied 
boarding compensation system in scheduled air transport (*) 
(91/C 31/09) 
On 16 May 1990 the Council decided, in accordance with Article 84(2) of the Treaty 
establishing the European Economic Community, to ask the Economic and Social Committee 
for an Opinion on the abovementioned proposal. 
The Section for Transport and Communications, which was responsible for the Committee's 
preparatory work, adopted its Opinion on 18 July 1990. The report was drafted by Mr Ataide 
Ferreira. 
At its 280th plenary session (meeting of 18 October 1990) the Economic and Social Committee 
adopted the following Opinion by a large majority with one abstention. 
1. General comments 
1.1. Aims of the proposal 
1.1.1. In the air transport sector, the denial of per­
mission to board an aircraft to passengers with a valid 
ticket and confirmed reservation is a source of consider­
able dissatisfaction and annoyance to those consumers 
who are victims of it, even if their exact number is not 
revealed by European airlines. 
1.1.2. The most common cause of denied boarding 
is overbooking: as experience has shown that some 
passengers with a flexible ticket do not check in for 
flights for which they have a confirmed reservation, 
airlines have got into the habit of scheduling a higher 
number of reservations for each flight so as to maximize 
load factors. According to the Association of European 
Airlines (AEA), around one million passengers a year 
do no check in for boarding; other estimates suggest an 
average of 15-20% for 'no-shows', with 30% even 
being reached on some peak-hour flights. However, 
overbooking is not the only reason for passengers being 
denied boarding. Indeed, when flights are cancelled for 
commercial or technical reasons, passengers also have 
to be offered an alternative flight and are likely to lose 
out. 
1.1.3. There are no official statistics on the exact 
number of cases where boarding is denied by European 
airlines operating on routes to and from the EC. In 
addition, the Committee has no knowledge of the sur­
veys carried out on this matter by the Commission 
before it prepared the present proposal. As a guide, a 
European airline mentions a figure of 7 passengers 
in 10 000, while the air transport committee of the 
international chamber of commerce refers to a figure 
of 1 in 1 000. Statistics from the USA indicate an average of 5 denials per 10 000 boardings, although these figures 
do not take account of people who answered the call 
for volunteers. 
1.1.4. Whatever the cause, denied boarding consti­
tutes, in the case of a passenger who has a confirmed 
reservation, who has fulfilled his obligation of paying 
for his ticket and who has checked in for boarding 
within the time limits laid down, a unilateral breach of 
contract entitling the victim, under the normal law of 
obligations, to compensation as the co-contractor of 
the airline. Denied boarding by airlines should therefore 
be considered in the light of the rules on abusive con­
tractual conditions in force in several Member States 
and recommended by the Council of Europe (2). 
Although 'no show passengers' (i.e. passengers with 
reservations who do not check in for boarding and do 
not inform the airline in advance) contribute to the 
problem of denied boarding for others, such a behav­
iour is the direct consequence of the possibilities offered 
by the transporter when issuing fully flexible tickets. 
1.1.5. However, European airlines operating on 
routes to and from the EC are not at present specifically 
bound by any rules; despite the recommendations of 
associations such as IATA or the AEA, each airline 
pursues its own compensation policy in accordance 
with its own commercial objectives. Some airlines offer 
no compensation at all to passengers to whom they 
have denied boarding, while others have a standard 
scheme covering all their routes and offering compen­
sation which varies according to the distance of the 
flight and the delay incurred. 
Even those airlines which do have rules on how to 
tackle problems arising from overbooking, and on com­
pensation for passengers denied boarding, do not pub-
(!) OJ No C 129, 24. 5. 1990, p. 13. (2) Council of Europe Resolution of 16 November 1976 on unfair 
clauses in consumer contracts. 
6. 2. 91 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 31/29 
licize them and refuse to supply information, even when 
directly and categorically asked to do so. 
It should be noted here that Spain adopted detailed 
legislation on denied boarding in 1980 (1). 
1.1.6. The Committee would stress that overbooking 
is an anomaly which should not be encouraged. It is 
mainly a perverse effect of the flexibility offered in 
certain booking schemes, but must not become general 
practice. 
1.2. An incomplete approach 
1.2.1. By providing passengers on flights from an 
EEC airport with basic protection against certain cases 
of overbooking and cancellations by airlines, the pro­
posed regulation is certainly a consumer protection 
measure in the air transport sector. Also, and above 
all, it will help create an economic environment where 
airlines can be better equipped to deal with develop­
ments in air transport, especially the increased compe­
tition following the liberalization introduced by the 
Council in December 1987 (2) and endorsed by the Econ­
omic and Social Committee. 
1.2.2. Although the Commission proposal is incom­
plete, the Committee feels that it provides an interesting 
starting point which, if it is to be a wholly adequate 
response to the problems suffered by air passengers, 
requires additional measures to limit the practice of 
airlines denying permission to board. For this reason 
the Committee calls upon the relevant departments at 
the Commission to take steps to tackle the causes of 
the problem. 
1.3. The Committee wonders whether, in addition 
to adopting this Regulation, the Community authorities 
could not promote self-regulation by the airlines them­
selves, by asking them to draw up a complementary 
draft code of practice which would be submitted to the 
Commission for approval before it entered into force. 
The code of practice would cover: 
— the establishment of objective rules on overbooking 
practices, 
— measures to be taken in cases of unforeseen over­
booking. This would make it possible to remove 
certain points from the regulation, which the Com­
mittee in some respects finds difficult to implement. 
(!) Royal Decree 1961/1980, BOE (official State gazette) of 
3 October 1980. 
(2) Council Decision of 14 December 1987, published in OJ No L 
374 of 31. 12. 1987, p. 19; ESC Opinion published in OJ No 
C 303, 25. 11. 1985, p. 31 and OJ No C 105, 21. 4. 1987, p. 
4. 1.4. Legal basis 
As its legal basis, the Commission has taken Article 
84(2) of the Treaty of Rome, which authorizes the 
Council to take appropriate measures in the field of air 
transport in particular. The Committee considers that 
this legal basis cannot be called into question. 
2. Assessment of the proposal 
2.1. Scope of the proposed regulation: Article 1 
The scope of the proposed regulation is limited in two 
ways: 
2.1.1. It only applies to scheduled flights, and not 
to charters: however, the definition provided later in 
Article 2(c) is broad enough to allow the regulation to 
cover 'bogus' charters (flights which are called charters 
but which are really scheduled services). Moreover, 
for charters forming part of a package tour, explicit 
reference is made in Article 5 to the 13 June 1990 
Directive (3) on package tours, which states that the 
tour operator is liable to pay customers compensation. 
2.1.2. The proposed regulation only applies to flights 
from an airport on the territory of an EEC Member 
State subject to the Treaty, whatever the state in which 
the carrier is established, the nationality of the passen­
ger or the destination. 
2.2. Definitions: Article 2 
2.2.1. A confirmed reservation ((Article 2(b))) 
requires that the notation 'OK' should be indicated in 
the appropriate space on the ticket. Now, it seems that 
there are frauds in this area both by unscrupulous travel 
agents and by individuals. But passengers have no way 
of proving their good faith. So, it would be a good idea 
if the regulation stated that disputes on the validity of 
an 'OK' notation on a given ticket would not suspend 
the application of the protection which the regulation 
grants to air passengers, unless a decision to the con­
trary were taken by a body dealing with disputes in 
such matters. 
2.2.2. The Committee supports the proposed protec­
tion for passengers who are denied boarding because 
their flight has been cancelled due to insufficient passen­
ger numbers and suggests that when a cancellation 
is anticipated, carriers should be required to notify 
passengers in advance and offer them alternative flights. 
This decision encroaches on the airline companies' 
sphere of interest, as it is they who make the decision 
(3) OJ No L 158, 23. 6. 1990, p. 59. 
No C 31/30 Official Journal of the European Communities 6. 2. 91 
to cancel a flight. The Committee supports the Com­
mission in its moves to compensate passengers whose 
flights have been cancelled for commercial reasons (1). 
It does, however, deplore the fact that the Commission 
has not defined 'cancellation for commercial reasons'; 
this could lead to situations where airline companies 
would be forced to compensate passengers for circum­
stances beyond their control, such as cancellations for 
technical reasons. The Committee calls on the Com­
mission to propose a separate regulation on this matter, 
making a clear distinction between cancellation for 
commercial reasons on the one hand, and for technical 
reasons on the other. 
2.2.3. The distinction between intra-Community and 
extra-Community flights [Article 2(j) and (k)] may seem 
somewhat artificial, as distances may sometimes be the 
same or even shorter on extra-Community flights. But 
in order to achieve a market without internal frontiers, 
it is understandable that the Commission should give 
preference to the efficient operation of a transport 
system proposed as part of this market. 
Nevertheless, applying such a rule may lead to com­
pletely unsatisfactory situations for passengers (e.g. dif­
ferences in compensation between a Munich-Frankfurt 
and a Munich-Salzburg flight). In more basic terms, 
passengers should be compensated at a flat rate based 
indirectly on the distance they were supposed to travel. 
Identical treatment for all flights would have the advan­
tage that passengers would be treated the same irrespec­
tive of their destination. Such an attitude would also 
be in keeping with the talks with the countries of the 
European Free Trade Association (EFTA), whereby a 
European economic space would go beyond the strict 
limits of the EEC. The Committee therefore suggests 
that this distinction be dropped from the proposal (2). 
2.3. Procedures for refusing boarding: Article 3 
2.3.1. The call for volunteers is the solution least 
likely to cause dissatisfaction among passengers. But it 
may lead to serious delays in take-off. The airline 
should therefore be allowed to take account of certain 
imperatives before resorting to the volunteer formula. 
(*) The Committee would draw attention to the problem of 
aligning the different language versions of the Commission 
proposal; the German and Portuguese versions do in fact 
extend the concept of overbooking by referring to flight 
cancellations for both commercial and technical reasons. 
(2) See too the Commission's proposal concerning the nego­
tiations between the EEC and EFTA countries on scheduled 
air passenger services (doc. COM(90) 18 final of 14 February 
1990). Moreover, offloaded volunteers should have absolute 
priority on the alternative flight offered to them. 
2.3.2. Priorities for boarding and for not being 
offloaded: The Commission's text should be reviewed 
to take into consideration certain realities not taken 
into account in the present version. 
2.3.2.1. First of all, reference is made in Article 3(4) 
to persons who should be given a high priority, depend­
ing on the circumstances. Although the Commission's 
intention is to give total priority to persons travelling 
because of a family death or illness, unaccompanied 
children and aged or handicapped persons, this is not 
absolutely clear from the text; the wording should 
therefore be improved so that the guidelines to be 
followed by airlines are expressed more clearly. How­
ever, such a priority should not be rigid and airlines 
must have some discretionary powers, as in the present 
text. 
2.3.2.2. Secondly, the Commission takes no account 
in its priorities of passengers who have to make a 
connection: these should have priority boarding status 
if the carrier cannot guarantee the connection by an 
alternative flight. 
2.3.2.3. Moreover, the Commission has taken no 
account of stopovers and of passengers embarking 
there. When a new case of overbooking arises at a 
stopover, it would be particularly serious if passengers 
who embarked on the initial flight were obliged, 
through the priorities system, to disembark at a place 
which was neither their airport of departure nor their 
destination. The interests of such passengers may clash 
with those of 'top priority' passengers boarding at 
the stopover. The regulation should guarantee that 
passengers authorized to board cannot be offloaded at 
a stopover. The only satisfactory solution would be to 
allow airlines to take account of the flight as a whole 
when allocating seats at the airport of departure. 
2.3.2.4. Non-fully flexible tickets: The Committee 
feels that the interests of passengers with such tickets 
would be better served by a more flexible approach 
say, by allowing them to benefit from the conditions 
applying to a fully flexible ticket for the flight affected 
by overbooking; this would be more likely to attract 
volunteers from passengers with non-fully flexible tick­
ets and permit a more favourable response to the expec­
tations of people with a fully flexible ticket. This 
approach would be more in keeping with business 
thinking. 
6. 2. 91 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 31/31 
2.4. Criteria and procedures for compensation (Ar­
ticles 4, 6 and 7) 
The proposal provides first of all for a passenger com­
pensation scheme based on the length of the flight, the 
price of the cheapest fully flexible ticket available and 
the delay caused to the passenger by denying him auth­
orization to board. 
Payment of compensation does not affect the passen­
ger's right to use his ticket at a later date or cancel his 
flight. But non-fully flexible tickets are given special 
treatment: compensation equivalent to 100% of the 
price of the lowest-priced fully flexible ticket. The 
proposal then sets rules covering the airline's payment 
of expenses incurred by passengers through being 
denied permission to board. Finally, it specifies the 
cases where the airline is not obliged to pay any com­
pensation. 
These provisions call for the following comments: 
2.4.1. One of the first obligations of an airline is to 
offer the passenger guaranteed transport on an alterna­
tive flight. This obligation is not explicitly laid down 
in the proposal. It should also apply to passengers who 
do not have a fully flexible ticket. What is more, if 
compensation is to be calculated properly, the flight to 
which it applies must be identified. As compensation is 
to be calculated properly, the flight to which it applies 
must be identified. As compensation is based on the 
flight that the passenger will be able to take to reach 
his destination, account should be taken not only of 
the scheduling of this flight but also of the exact time 
of its departure, so as not to cause even more serious 
inconvenience to passengers denied boarding on the 
first flight. 
If a passenger is carried, voluntarily or otherwise, to 
his destination on an alternative, but indirect, flight, 
and misses the connecting flight for reasons attributable 
to the carrier, that passenger must have the right to 
additional compensation which takes account of the 
overall delay incurred. 
2.4.2. Article 4(1): The compensation provided for 
by the proposal is based on a percentage of the value 
of the lowest-priced fully flexible ticket to the final 
destination on the ticket presented at the check-in. 
The Committee is concerned that the adoption of the 
lowest-price fully flexible ticket to the final destination 
as the basis for compensation will cause unnecessary 
delay to passengers at airports, due to the complexity 
of airline tariffs and the need for airline staff to refer 
to complex manuals in order to ascertain the appropri­
ate fare in each case of denied boarding. The Committee suggests that the Commission consider basing compen­
sation on a flat-rate amount which could vary according 
to whether a flight is national, European or interconti­
nental. So that the regulation remains efficient in the 
long run, it should contain a simple procedure for 
revising this amount (indexation clause). 
2.4.3. The proposal does not say within what time-
limit or how compensation is to be paid. The Commit­
tee proposes adding a reference in Artile 4(1) to immedi­
ate payment of compensation at the place and time at 
which boarding is denied; if the passenger opts for 
money, payment should be made in cash. 
2.4.4. The compensation percentages only take 
account of two cases: delays of more than 30 minutes 
and less than two hours (four hours for extra-Com­
munity flights) and delays of more than two hours (four 
hours for extra-Community flights). But the Committee 
feels that the scale of inconvenience suffered by a pass­
enger depends on whether he was delayed more than 
two hours, more than four hours or for one or more 
days. It therefore calls on the Commission to examine 
a simpler, more flexible system of calculating compen­
sation based on the following minimum provisions: 
— basic compensation when the delay is more than 30 
minutes but less than two hours, 
— twice basic compensation when the delay is more 
than two hours but less than four hours, 
— three times basic compensation when the delay is 
more than four hours but less than 24 hours, 
— four times basic compensation when the delay is 
more than 24 hours but less than 48 hours, 
— eight times basic compensation when the delay is 
more than two days. 
The Committee also feels, that the distinction between 
intra-Community and extra-Community flights should 
be abolished. The system of compensation should be 
as simple as possible in order to avoid potential delay 
to passengers at time of in/travel. 
2.4.5. In some situations, airline companies will be 
obliged to compensate passengers when they have car­
ried these passengers on only part of the journey 
covered by the ticket. Such situations are liable to 
jeopardize the inability of smaller companies. The Com­
mittee therefore urges air transporters to take account 
of this problem and solve it by means of self-regulation, 
thus defining where responsibility begins and ends for 
individual companies when there are a number of com­
panies transporting passengers on different legs of a 
single journey. An airline company can only be held 
No C 31/32 Official Journal of the European Communities 6. 2. 91 
responsible for overbooking on its own flights and for 
the consequences of this practice on subsequent flights. 
2.4.6. Article 4(1), second paragraph: The Commit­
tee supports the Commission proposal that the payment 
of compensation should not affect a passenger's right 
to use his ticket on another flight or to seek a complete 
refund. 
2.4.7. Article 4(2): The Committee proposes that 
this paragraph be deleted, as it disagrees with the Com­
mission's approach to non-fully flexible tickets. 
Although these passengers receive more compensation 
than passengers with other tickets, they do lose their 
right to start or continue their flight. The compensation 
is therefore illusory as it consists in practice of simply 
offering passengers the means to buy another ticket. 
For this reason the Committee proposes that a clause 
be inserted at the beginning of Article 4, obliging airlines 
to eliminate the restrictions attached to non-fully flex­
ible tickets (see point 2.3.2.4 above). 
2.4.8. As regards the other costs which airlines have 
to pay to passengers denied boarding (Article 6), the 
Committee suggests that Article 6(1) (b) be worded more 
flexibly to take account of the specific circumstances 
of certain passengers (informing the family, employer, 
multiple appointments). 
2.4.9. The Committee feels that the conditions under 
which compensation may be refused (Article 7) are 
based on a justifiable concern to ensure fairness. 
2.4.9.1. Article 7(1) (b) includes passengers who do 
not check in on time. Passengers who are denied board­
ing because of overbooking must be given some means 
of proving that they have checked in on time. 
2.4.9.2. The Committee proposes adding to Article 
7(1) (c) an express reference to any existing customs and 
health formalities. 
2.4.9.3. The refusal to compensate passengers hold­
ing discount tickets not available to the general public 
is a way of offsetting the discounts which these passen­
gers get. Moreover, this refusal stems from what the 
Committee feels is a quite legitimate desire to prevent 
certain types of fraud. 2.4.9.4. Article 7(2) (b) refers to the passenger's 
choice of compensation: if he feels that damages he has 
actually suffered are greater than the flat-rate compen­
sation offered by the airline under the regulation, he 
may prefer to apply to the courts or other competent 
bodies for full restitution of these damages under ordi­
nary law. In such cases, the airline does not have to 
pay the flat-rate compensation. 
2.5. Relations between airlines and package tour oper­
ators : Article 5 
2.5.1. This Article has been inserted between several 
provisions dealing with compensation procedures. The 
Committee thinks it would be more logical to include 
it among the final provisions. 
2.5.2. Under Article 5, an airline must reimburse tour 
operators for any sums which they have had to pay to 
their customers or other parties involved as a result of 
the airline's failure to execute part of a travel contract. 
It should be pointed out that compensation paid by the 
tour operator may be higher than that provided for 
in the present proposal. Moreover, the explanatory 
memorandum makes no mention of Article 5, which 
was apparently added at the last minute by the Com­
mission. 
2.5.3. In respect of this article, the Committee would 
draw attention to its remarks on the definition of sched­
uled flights (2.1.1) and to its Opinion on the develop­
ment of civil aviation in the Community and the appli­
cation of the competition rules to air transport (second 
phase of liberalization) (J). The Opinion highlights the 
fact that certain so-called charter flights in reality fulfil 
all the conditions laid down for scheduled flights. The 
Committee wants the scope of the regulation to be 
interpreted as broadly as possible and to cover flights 
which are called charters even though they fly more or 
less regularly. 
2.6. Complaints procedure: Article 8 
Article 8 obliges Member States to ensure that in their 
territories a rapid, efficient and inexpensive procedure 
is available for use by consumers in cases of complaints 
about passenger rights in the case of denied boarding. 
The Committee welcomes such a procedure, as experi­
ence has shown that consumers are dissuaded from 
(!) OJ No C 112, 7. 5. 1990, p. 17. 
6. 2. 91 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 31/33 
complaining by the psychological, cultural and socio­
economic barriers they have to face when bringing a 
conventional legal action. 
2.7. Passenger information: Article 9 
2.7.1. The Committee does not feel that this article 
goes far enough. The airline's obligation to provide 
information must apply as a general rule, and not just 
in cases of denied boarding. The Committee therefore 
proposes that air tickets contain a reference to the 
present regulation. 
2.7.2. Furthermore, the rules relating to denied 
boarding and compensation must be made available to 
passengers at check-in desks. 
2.7.3. Where boarding is denied, the airline must 
automatically provide 
— passengers not permitted to check in with a certifi­
cate stating, where appropriate, that he attempted 
to check in within the required time limits, 
— passengers who have checked in but have been 
denied boarding and do not accept the flat-rate 
compensation provided under the regulation, with 
a certificate to this effect, 
— the names, addresses etc. of the bodies responsible 
for handling complaints on such matters. 
In addition, there should be a certain amount of flexi­
bility, so that the passenger does not have to apply to 
the complaints body in the Member State where the 
ticket was purchased, as this may not necessarily be his 
usual country of residence. Non-EEC citizens should 
be able to complain to a body in the Member State of 
their choice. 
2.8. Entry into force 
The Commission intends the regulation to come into 
force on 1 December 1990. This seems reasonable, as 
airlines have already shown a great capacity to adapt. 
3. Specific comments 
3.1. Article 2(b), second indent, should be expanded 
to read : 
'The notation of 'OK' in the appropriate space on 
the ticket signifying the registration by the air carrier as well as the express acknowledgment of the air 
carrier of the reservation; any disputes over the 
validity of the notation of 'OK' on a given ticket 
shall not suspend the confirmed status of the reser­
vation for the purposes of applying this Regulation.' 
3.2. Articles 2(j) and 2(k) should be amended in line 
with the proposed new wording of points 2.4.2 and 
2.4.4 above. 
3.3. Article 3(1) should be amended to read: 
'1. In the event of an overbooked flight, air carriers 
shall in the first instance call for volunteers who are 
prepared to surrender their confirmed reservation in 
exchange for guaranteed transport on an alternative 
flight to the final destination ...' 
3.4. Article 3(3)(b) should be amended to read: 
'3. b) Passengers who have to make a connection 
and to whom the carrier cannot guarantee this 
connection by an alternative flight should be given 
boarding priority.' 
3.5. Article 3(4) should be amended to read: 
'4. If carriers consider such action justified, and in 
keeping with their business strategy, unaccompan­
ied children, aged or handicapped persons and pass­
engers who have demonstrated the need to travel 
due to death or illness of a family member may be 
given boarding priority.' 
3.6. Article 4(1) should be amended to read as fol­
lows : 
'1. To passengers who, despite the fact that they 
hold a confirmed reservation and have presented 
themselves within the required time-limits for 
check-in, have been prevented from boarding an 
overbooked flight, the air carrier shall be obliged: 
— to offer guaranteed transport on an alternative 
flight which best corresponds to the specifi­
cations of the initial flight (delay with respect 
to the initial flight, airport of destination); this 
flight shall be the basis for calculating the 
amount of compensation; 
— for passengers who have a non-fully flexible 
ticket, to remove all the restrictions pertaining 
to the marketing of such a ticket, as set out in 
Article 2(g); 
— to pay immediately, in cash if the passenger so 
wishes, at the place and time at which boarding 
is denied: 
No C 31/34 Official Journal of the European Communities 6. 2. 91 
(i) minimum compensation of .... (*) to their 
final destination in cases in which the alter­
native flight is scheduled to arrive at the 
final destination at least 30 minutes later 
than the original flight but less than two 
hours later; 
(ii) minimum compensation .... (1) to their final 
destination in cases in which the alternative 
flight is scheduled to arrive at the final 
destination at least two hours later than the 
original flight but less than four hours later; 
(iii) minimum compensation .... (*) to their final 
destination in cases in which the alternative 
flight is scheduled to arrive at the final 
destination at least four hours later than the 
original flight but less than 24 hours later; 3.9. Article 5 should become Article 9. 
3.10. Article 6 should be amended to read as follows: 
'Article 5 
1. b) the expenses for telephone calls and/or telex/ 
telefax messages, where these are justified by the 
delay caused to the passenger through his being 
denied permission to board.' 
3.11. Article 7 should be amended to read as follows: 
'Article 6 
(iv) minimum compensation .... (1) to their final 
destination in cases in which the alternative 
flight is scheduled to arrive at the final 
destination at least 24 hours later than the 
original flight but less than 48 hours later; 1. c) to undergo a security check or other usual 
departure formalities, such as any customs or health 
formalities.' 
(v) minimum compensation .... (l) to their final 
destination in cases in which the alternative 
flight is scheduled to arrive at the final 
destination more than 48 hours later than 
the original flight.' 3.12. Article 8 should be re-numbered as Article 7. 
3.13. Article 9 should be amended to read as follows: 
3.7. 
lows: Article 4(2) should be amended to read as fol- 'Article 8 
'2. The payment of compensation for denied board­
ing shall not affect the passenger's right to use 
his ticket on an alternative flight to his original 
destination or to obtain a complete refund of the 
cost of this ticket if he does not wish to accept the 
alternative flight offered to him.' 
3.8. A new Article 4(3) should be inserted: 
'3. If the passenger denied boarding is carried on an 
alternative flight via a connecting flight from anoth­
er airport and misses that connecting flight through 
no fault of his own, that passenger shall have the 
right to additional compensation calculated accord­
ing to the terms set out in Article 4(1), in line with 
the total delay incurred.' 1. Air carriers shall indicate on the travel documents 
which they give to passengers a reference to the 
rules applicable to cases of overbooking under this 
Regulation. They shall place such information at 
the disposal of their customers at check-in desks. 
2. In cases of denied boarding, the air carrier shall 
immediately supply to the passengers concerned a 
list of the competent bodies in the various Member 
States to which they may address a complaint for 
non-compliance with this Regulation, together with 
a claim form setting out the rules for compensation 
in cases of denied boarding. 
3. The air carrier shall provide passengers to whom 
boarding has been denied through overbooking, 
even though they fulfilled the conditions for being 
allowed to board, with a certificate stating that 
these persons presented themselves within the time 
limits laid down for checking-in. 
(*) Compensation percentages will vary in line with the proposals 
made in 2.4.4. Fixed-rate compensation and the updating 
procedure must be determined accordingly. 4. The air carrier shall provide passengers who have 
been denied permission to board a flight for which 
they fulfilled the conditions for being allowed to 
6. 2. 91 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 31/35 
board with a certificate stating that they have been 
victims of a situation of overbooking.' 3.14. The new Article 9 would be the same as 
the present Article 5 of the Commission proposal. 
Done at Brussels, 18 October 1990. 
The Chairman 
of the Economic and Social Committee 
Francois STAEDELIN 
Opinion on: 
— the proposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion of a cooperation agreement 
between the European Economic Community and the Kingdom of Sweden on a research 
and development programme for the European Economic Community in the field of 
applied metrology and chemical analysis (BCR), 
— the proposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion of a cooperation agreement 
between the European Economic Community and the Republic of Finland on a research 
and development programme for the European Economic Community in the field of 
applied metrology and chemical analysis (BCR), 
— the proposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion of a cooperation agreement 
between the European Economic Community and the Swiss Confederation on a research 
and development programme for the European Economic Community in the field of 
applied metrology and chemical analysis (BCR) (*) 
(91/ C 31/10) 
On 1 June 1990 the Council of the European Communities, acting under Article 130Q of the 
Treaty establishing the European Economic Community consulted the Economic and Social 
Committee on the abovementioned proposals. 
Given the Council's deadline for the Opinion, the Committee appointed Mr Flum as 
Rapporteur-General and instructed him to prepare the Committee's work on the matter. 
At its 280th plenary session (meeting of 18 October 1990) the Committee unanimously 
adopted the following Opinion. 
1. Preamble 2. General comments 
1.1. The Committee notes with interest the Council 
Decision to involve three countries of the European 
Free Trade Association (EFTA) (Finland, Sweden, and 
Switzerland) in a research and development programme 
in the field of applied metrology and chemical analysis 
(BCR). Since the three draft Decisions are similar, the following 
comments and remarks apply to all three proposals. 
1.2. The proposal follows on from the framework 
agreement on scientific and technical cooperation 
—adopted by the Council on 9 February 
1987 (*)—between the European Communities and the 
three countries concerned. 3. Scope of the agreements 
(*) OJ No C 148, 16. 6. 1990, p. 31, p. 37, p. 43. 
(2) OJ No L 71, 14. 3. 1987, p. 29. 3.1. The three EFTA countries are to be involved 
in the Community projects, subject to payment of a 
contribution geared to their respective Gross Domestic 
Product.