Court orders RAM to compensate passengers for denied boarding in landmark rulings

The Oujda Court of First Instance recently issued two rulings obligating Royal Air Maroc (RAM) to compensate two passengers who were denied boarding despite having confirmed reservations due to overbooking .

Yassine Ibn Massoud, a lawyer from the Oujda Bar, described the rulings as a “legal precedent,” asserting that they “affirm the airline’s responsibility in cases of ‘denied boarding.'” 

This occurs when a passenger is prevented from boarding despite having a valid ticket due to the number of tickets sold exceeding the available seats on the plane.

The case details date back to July 2022 when the plaintiff booked two tickets for a flight between Casablanca and Oujda, before he was surprised to be denied boarding because the number of tickets exceeded the available seats. 

He was rebooked on a flight that arrived after midnight, causing both financial and moral harm, as he had urgent business to attend to in Oujda as a notary and was traveling with his daughter, who was taking entrance exams for higher education institutions.

The plaintiff’s defense argued that the airline, in addition to applying the “denied boarding” technique, failed to assist the affected passengers, nor did it refund a portion of the ticket prices within a week of the flight, as required by law.

The defense also emphasized that “denied boarding” was the direct fault of the airline, which allowed ticket bookings exceeding the available seats. The airline exploited the imbalance in the contractual relationship and failed to adhere to its legal duty to inform passengers of their rights in case of denied boarding, flight cancellations, or delays, as stipulated in Article 217 of the Civil Aviation Law.

The court, in its rulings, rejected the defendant’s claim that the flight cancellation was due to a force majeure event. 

The court ruled that the reason for the cancellation was simply the overbooking, which was a result of negligence in monitoring the number of booked seats. 

The court stated that such a situation was not a case of “force majeure” as it could have been foreseen and prevented.

The court ruled that the delay in the flight and the plaintiff’s postponed travel was avoidable if the airline had fulfilled its legal obligations, which it failed to do. This failure to comply with its duties caused the passenger to miss his flight.

The court emphasized the binding nature of the contract between the passenger and the airline and ordered RAM to compensate the passenger with 30,000 MAD in the first case and 15,000 MAD in the second case.

Lawyer Ibn Massoud noted that these rulings constitute “a legal precedent in Morocco,” as they address the specific legal provisions related to “denied boarding,” where overbooked tickets exceed available seats, even though the flight departs as scheduled. He stressed that while the law allows airlines to overbook, it cannot be abused to the detriment of passengers and must follow the procedures outlined in the Civil Aviation Code.

He also pointed out that filing this lawsuit aims to “promote a culture of accountability among airlines, activate the legal protections for air transport consumers, and ensure that delays or failure to adhere to the scheduled time result in compensation, as time is valuable, and delays can disrupt important appointments for passengers.”