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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 8 / Wednesday, January 13, 2021 / Rules and Regulations volunteers before denying any passenger boarding involuntarily, carriers must first request volunteers with an offer of compensation. Further, with respect to passengers denied boarding involuntarily, 250.8 provides that carriers must tender to passengers DBC
on the day and in the place the denied boarding occurs, or within 24 hours after the denied boarding occurs.
Carriers are required to do so even if the eligible passenger is not aware of the entitlement to DBC and therefore does not make a request for compensation.
Although the Departments Office of Aviation Consumer Protection interprets part 250 as requiring carriers to offer, proactively, compensation to passengers voluntarily and involuntarily denied boarding, the Department is amending 250.2b to require explicitly that carriers must provide compensation proactively instead of waiting for passengers to request the compensation in an oversale situation. The Department will continue to enforce part 250 to ensure that passengers that have volunteered to be denied boarding in response to carriers offers of compensation and passengers denied boarding involuntarily receive proper compensations due to them.
For a carrier that imposes a liability limit to its denied boarding compensation and mishandled domestic baggage compensation, the limits must be updated to these new amounts for transportation taking place on or after the effective date as opposed to tickets sold on or after the effective date. All notices to passengers required by parts 250 and 254 as they pertain to the new DBC liability limits and domestic baggage liability limit must be updated by the effective date of this final rule.
II. Codifying Sections 425bd of the TICKETS Act Prohibiting Removal of Passengers Who Already Boarded Flights Section 425b of the TICKETS Act contains a self-effectuating provision that prohibits airlines from denying boarding to a revenue passenger traveling on a confirmed reservation or involuntarily removing that passenger from a flight, if the passenger checked in before the check-in deadline and had a ticket or boarding pass collected or electronically scanned and accepted by the gate agent. Pursuant to sections 425c and d of the TICKETS Act, this prohibition is subject to safety, security, or health risk exceptions and it may not be construed as a limitation on the responsibility or authority of a pilot in command of an aircraft under 14 CFR
121.533. This prohibition also may not limit a penalty imposed on an
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individual for interfering with flight crew members and attendants, as provided in 49 U.S.C. 46504. The requirements in sections 425bd of the TICKETS Act became effective on October 5, 2018, the effective date of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018. This final rule codifies these requirements exactly as provided in the FAA
Reauthorization Act of 2018 1 in 14 CFR
part 250, and makes it enforceable by the Department.
Covered Carriers Under the TICKETS
Act The Departments oversales rule, 14
CFR part 250, applies to direct air carriers and foreign air carriers with respect to scheduled flight segments using an aircraft that has a designed passenger capacity of 30 or more passenger seats, operating in interstate air transportation, or foreign air transportation with respect to nonstop flight segments originating at a point within the United States. In contrast, pursuant to section 402 of the FAA
Reauthorization Act of 2018, covered air carrier as used in the TICKETS Act means an air carrier or a foreign air carrier as those terms are defined in 49
U.S.C. 40102. Under 49 U.S.C. 40102, an air carrier means a citizen of the United States undertaking by any means, directly or indirectly, to provide air transportation; and a foreign air carrier means a person, not a citizen of the United States, undertaking by any means, directly or indirectly, to provide foreign air transportation. This means that more air carriers and foreign air carriers are covered under the TICKETS
Act than carriers covered under the existing requirements of part 250. The requirement of sections bd of the TICKETS Act apply to all direct and indirect air carriers and foreign air carriers that fall under the definitions of section 40102.2 As such, we are revising the applicability section of part 250, 1 Instead of incorporating the statutory language verbatim, the Department made certain necessary editorial changes to the statutory language when codifying the statute into the rule text. The changes made are: 1 Deleting the effective date of the requirements in the statute which is the date of the enactment of this Act because the effective date of the requirements as codified in 14 CFR part 250 is the date that is 90 days from the publication date of this final rule; and 2 changing the lead sentence in the Limitation paragraph from The prohibition pursuant to subsection b shall not apply . . . to The prohibition pursuant to paragraph a of this section shall not apply. . . .
2 The Department does not believe that Congress intended to apply the broader scope of section 40102 definitions to section e of the TICKETS Act, which relates to denied boarding compensation. It is our understanding that should Congress intend to require carriers that are not currently covered by part 250 to provide denied boarding compensations to passengers, it would have stated so specifically.

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250.2, to specify that the requirements regarding removing a revenue passenger from a flight, as codified under 14 CFR
250.7, has a broader scope than the other provisions of part 250.
Ticket or Boarding Pass Collected or Electronically Scanned and Accepted by the Gate Agent According to the TICKETS Act, airlines are prohibited from removing a passenger or denying a passenger boarding after the passengers ticket or boarding pass is collected or electronically scanned and accepted by the gate agent emphasis added.
Therefore, a carrier agents physical collection of a paper boarding pass alone does not indicate an acceptance of the passenger to board the aircraft.
Similarly, when a carrier uses electronic devices of any kind to scan a boarding pass e.g., a paper boarding pass, an electronic boarding pass on a mobile device, the scanning itself alone does not indicate that the carrier has accepted the passenger for boarding.
After the physical collection or electronic scanning, the gate agent may have reasons to not permit a passenger to board e.g., the agent may find out that the passenger was trying to board a wrong flight, or may find out that the passenger has been selected to be involuntarily denied boarding. In those situations, the carrier may legally deny the passenger boarding because the passenger has not been accepted by a gate agent. Alternatively, if the gate agent accepts a passenger for boarding after collecting or scanning the passengers boarding pass, the carrier is prohibited from removing the passenger from the flight thereafter.
III. Revision of Carriers Liability Limits for Denied Boarding Compensation The Departments oversales rule, 14
CFR part 250, requires that the DBC
liability limit amounts be periodically adjusted to reflect changes in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers CPIU. Specifically, 14
CFR 250.5e provides for the review of denied boarding compensation every two years through a specific formula to calculate the revised DBC liability limit amounts. The formula is below:
Current DBC limit 3 in 250.5a2
multiplied by a/b rounded to the nearest $25
3 The term DBC limit in the current rule text will be revised to DBC liability limit to clarify that carriers are permitted to limit their liability to the amount provided by regulation, or to offer a higher amount, consistent with the requirement of the TICKETS Act.

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