HomeNews
NewsTravel

Supreme Court rules airlines must partly refund overbooked flights

MND Staff
By MND Staff
0
Aircraft aisle
The Supreme Court has ruled in favour of increased consumer protections, as travellers must now be at least partially refunded if their flight is overbooked. (Hanson Lu/Unsplash)

Mexico’s Supreme Court (SCJN) has ruled that airlines must partially compensate passengers denied boarding due to overbooking, regardless of the alternatives provided, as per the Civil Aviation Law.  

The SCJN’s decision means that airlines operating in Mexico must compensate passengers for at least 25% of the ticket price, irrespective of any other compensation option offered. The ruling arose from a lawsuit brought against Air France in September 2017 after a Mexican family missed a flight and its connections to various European cities due to the overbooking of tickets by the French airline. 

A volaris aircraft
Airlines in Mexico often overbook flights, leading to passengers being denied boarding and forced to reschedule, sometimes without a refund. (Volaris/Instagram)

In addition to losing its Barcelona-London and London-Mexico City flight connections, the family had to buy new tickets to replace the missed connections for a total of $51,000 pesos (US $3,000).

The local and federal courts ruled in favor of Air France before the SCJN annulled those rulings and said Article 52 was unconstitutional. 

In its statement, the SCJN explained that the ruling emerged from an in-depth review of the Civil Aviation Law’s regulations concerning airlines’ responsibility when a passenger misses a connecting flight because of overbooking. 

According to Article 52 of the current Civil Aviation Law, in the case of overbooking, airlines must ask passengers to give up their seats and provide, at the passenger’s discretion, a ticket refund, boarding on the next available flight with airline-covered food and lodging, or a rescheduled flight. If the passenger opts for the first or third options, airlines should also offer compensation of at least 25% of the ticket price.

A Viva Aerobus Airbus A321 neo
Until now, passengers were not always entitled to refunds in the event of an overbooking. (Viva Aerobus)

The court noted that the law unreasonably denies full compensation in the second scenario — selecting the next available flight with airline-covered food and lodging. Thus, the SCJN rendered the last part of Article 52 unconstitutional and declared that airlines must compensate passengers denied boarding due to overbooked flights with at least 25% of the ticket price, regardless of the options offered to them. 

In the case of the family that filed the lawsuit, the SCJN has now sent their dossier to the originating courts for review and to establish the amount Air France must pay as compensation.  

With reports from Imagen and El Informador

Have something to say? Paid Subscribers get all access to make & read comments.
Miss Universe from Mexico, Fátima Bosch, with her crown

MND Local: Miss Universe Mexico and what else is new in Los Cabos during the second half of 2026

Chris Sands - 0
The Miss Universe Mexico pageant is coming to Los Cabos this summer, along with several other high-profile events and the premiere of a new ultra-luxury resort.
mexican open water medal winners

At the Central American and Caribbean Games, powerhouse Mexico builds for the 2028 Olympics

MND Staff - 0
At the century-old, IOC-sanctioned regional games, more than 6,000 athletes from 37 countries and territories are competing in 40 sports in Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic.
Vulcan Materials work site

Mexico gets favorable ruling in Vulcan trade accord violation case — but it’s far from over

MND Staff - 0
An arbitration panel let Mexico off the hook for US $1.53 billion in damages sought by a company whose operations in Quntana Roo were deemed to have been shut down illegally. Details of the eight years old case are yet to be made public.
BETA Version - Powered by Perplexity

VIDEO OF THE WEEK