Written question asked by Lord Luce (Crossbench), in the House of Lords. It was answered by Lord Bassam of Brighton (Labour) on Wednesday, 6 February 2008.

Aviation: Passengers Denied Boarding

Question: asked Her Majesty's Government:How many passengers were denied boarding on British airlines during the last year.

Answer: The Government do not hold this information as airlines are not required to report cases of denied boarding. However, the Air Transport Users Council (AUC) recorded 536 complaints in 2006-07 about denied boarding. Some of these would have been about foreign airlines. These form 5 per cent of the total number of complaints handled by the AUC. The percentage of passengers who complain out of the total number who are denied boarding is not known.

Secondary information