A aplicação de overbooking no mercado de transporte aéreo brasileiro

Abstract

This article aims to address the strategy of overbooking and its application in the Brazilian air transport market, highlighting the responsibilities of airlines and the rights of consumers of this service as passengers. In order to understand how it works, it is extremely important to analyze this technique since the time when air transport companies in Brazil realized the need to adopt overbooking until today. Due to the need to balance supply and demand by airlines through revenue management, the virtual increase in aircraft capacity becomes a way to avoid loss of revenue so that flights are not carried out with a certain number of unoccupied seats. In this work, a bibliographic research is carried out to describe this practice and expose the importance of its application in compliance with consumer rights. It is also necessary to cite the Conventions of which Brazil is a party and to verify whether there is a control by the companies regarding their responsibilities. The National Civil Aviation Agency establishes the general conditions for air transport and the mandatory compensation of carriers in case of overbooking with Resolution no. 400. The Consumer Protection Code, on the other hand, characterizes it as a breach of the air transport contract and alerts the airlines to the damage caused to the consumer, for which the carrier is obliged to perform the full repair of material and immaterial damages, as indemnity. In the face of this conflict, it is essential to present the existing rules and make a distinction as to their applicability. It appears that there is a difficulty in harmonizing the interests of passengers and air carriers in relation to the practice of overbooking, which shows that this technique needs constant improvement in order not to harm either of the two parties involved. This strategy is only effective when the forecast of absent passengers for certain flights is consistent with reality. Therefore, it is necessary to identify their flaws in order to achieve improvements in the provision of the service and clearly state, in the contracts, everything that passengers are subject to pass through, as well as their rights when subjected to overbooking.