Brazil: new invoice launched to make airline tickets transferable

A invoice being debated in Brazil’s Federal Senate might amend the Aeronautical Code (Legislation 7.565, 1986) to permit the purchaser of an airline ticket to switch possession of the ticket as much as 72 hours earlier than the date of journey. It was launched by Senator Mecias de Jesus (Republicans-RR), below the file PL 2.175/2022.

As reported by our companion media in Brazil, Aeroin, the proposal additionally determines that the non-public info registered within the firm’s system on the time of ticket buy be modified to incorporate the passenger’s private information.

Within the textual content, the senator stresses «the necessity to create laws that contemplates the particular cancellation insurance policies of every airline, since, regardless of the promise of full or partial reimbursement of the ticket, most circumstances lead to a prejudice to the passenger, who loses the cash spent on the acquisition of the ticket». Such insurance policies are primarily based on Decision 138/2010 of the Nationwide Civil Aviation Company (ANAC), which prohibits the switch of an airline ticket as a result of it’s thought-about private and non-transferable.

Mecias factors out that the ANAC decision is an administrative act, an infra-legal norm, which can not prevail over the Shopper Safety Code (Legislation 8.078, 1990).

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For the senator, the safety causes alleged by ANAC and the airways to ban passengers from altering their names will be resolved throughout check-in and boarding on the airport.

«I consider that the proposal to vary the ticket change rule is prone to be operationalised by airways with out affecting flight safety requirements. The actual fact is that, right this moment, solely the airways win, which undermines the required steadiness that should exist within the relationship with the patron to keep away from abuses. That is undoubtedly one of many the explanation why airways are among the many champions of complaints at Procon concerning the frequent lack of respect for shopper rights,» says the MEP.

This sort of regulation is usually strongly resisted by the trade because it opens the opportunity of making a parallel marketplace for the resale of tickets, affecting the economics of airways, which have very dynamic fare insurance policies that rely upon a number of elements when making use of a selected value to every ticket, considered one of them being the time of buy.

In November final 12 months, Chile handed an analogous rule permitting the endorsement of tickets however with some limitations akin to {that a} passenger can solely accomplish that as much as two occasions per 12 months per firm and as much as 24 hours earlier than the departure of the flight. However, so far as free refunds are involved, they are often made as much as 48 hours after the acquisition of the ticket and just for journeys scheduled throughout the following seven days. Peru additionally has comparable laws.