AIRLINES MUST PAY THE RELEVANT COSTS TO PASSENGERS WHO ARE NOT TRANSPORTED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONFIRMED INFORMATION

On June 30, 2023, the Ministry of Transport issued Circular 19/2023/TT-BGTVT ("Circular 19"), which revises, supplements, and abolishes certain provisions of regulations related to air transportation, with a focus on protecting the rights of passengers and businesses using air transportation methods. The specific points of the circular are as follows:

1. Addition of the minimum obligations of carriers (airlines) towards passengers with confirmed reservations and tickets for flights but are denied boarding due to incorrect confirmation information

Previously, Circular 81/2014/TT-BGTVT ("Circular 81") also defined the minimum obligations of carriers towards passengers when they are not allowed to board due to delayed, canceled, early departures, or denied boarding situations. According to Circular 81, airlines must ensure provisions for passengers' food, accommodation, transportation, and other necessary arrangements to safeguard the rights of passengers.

In Circular 19, additional minimum obligations that airlines must fulfill are as follows:

1. Promptly inform passengers about changes in the flight departure time. However, the Circular does not specify the form of notification. In our opinion, to ensure customer rights, airlines should provide notification in the same manner they confirmed the seat for the passenger, along with other appropriate measures depending on the urgency of the notification.
2. Apologize to the passenger: this emphasizes the service attitude and quality of service provided by airlines.
3. In addition to ensuring provisions for food, accommodation, and transportation, airlines must bear other directly related expenses that are appropriate during the waiting time at the airport as specified in the Carrier's Regulations. This is a new provision that supplements passenger rights. Amending legal regulations will enable passengers and airlines to have more favorable and flexible mechanisms for each case. For instance, according to Vietnam Airlines' Carrier's Regulations, the airline has a policy: "refund reasonable expenses of passengers for accommodation, meals, information, and transportation to/from the airport, and compensate for the damages that passengers must bear according to the carrier's publicly announced regulations." In cases of additional minimum obligations, Vietnam Airlines can instead ask customers to arrange their own accommodations and transportation and reimburse them accordingly, while also compensating for any other direct damages with sufficient practical and legal basis.

2. Changes to the method and basis for determining delayed or early flights

Circular 81 stipulates that "a delayed/early flight is a flight with an actual departure time (measured from the time the aircraft starts moving) later/earlier than 15 minutes compared to the scheduled takeoff time according to the airline's updated flight schedule until 15:00 of the day before the scheduled flight date." Accordingly, the determination is based on two factors: (i) the actual departure time measured from the time the aircraft starts moving, and (ii) the updated flight schedule until 15:00 of the day before.

Circular 19 makes adjustments to these two factors, specifically:

1. Actual departure time: It is calculated as the actual time the aircraft is pushed back or begins to move from its parked position.
2. Basis for schedule determination: It is the updated flight schedule until 22:00 (Hanoi time) the day before.

Therefore, passengers need to take note of these changes to keep their flight schedules accurately updated and have a direction to protect their legal rights and interests when faced with situations where the flight does not depart according to the schedule.

3. Streamlining documentation and reducing processing time for issuing secondary airway bills

Article 141, Section 1 of the Civil Aviation Law of Vietnam 2006 stipulates that a secondary air waybill is evidence of a contract for the carriage of goods by air between a cargo handling business and the shipper, including the conditions of the contract and the receipt of the goods for transportation.

Enterprises are required to register the export of secondary air waybills with the competent authority. If the requirements are met, the enterprise will be issued a Certificate of Registration for the export of secondary airway bills.

Circular 19, therefore, introduces provisions that are more flexible and facilitative for businesses during this process, specifically:

1. Allowing the submission of electronic documents;
2. Requiring only two components in the application: 1- The requested document; and 2- The secondary air waybill of the cargo handling business. The documentation requirements in Circular 19 are much simpler compared to those in the previous Circular 81.
3. Adjusting the processing time for reviewing the application from 5 working days to 3 working days;
4. Excluding the time taken for fee payment from the administrative procedure processing time;
5. Transferring the authority to issue the Certificate of Registration for the export of secondary air waybills from the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam to the Airports Authority.

Circular 19 will take effect on September 1, 2023.