Being turned away at the gate of a full flight is rare, but it still happens to a large number of people. In 2018, a study for the European Commission estimated that about 1 in 660 passengers on flights covered by EU rules was denied boarding against their will. We found no newer EU-wide count.
Why this matters: Europe has strong denied boarding rights but almost no public data on how often airlines use them. The United States counts every bumped passenger, airline by airline, every quarter. Putting the two side by side shows how much better US travellers can judge the risk before they book.
Key Takeaways
- An estimated 1.69 million passengers were denied boarding involuntarily on flights under EU Regulation 261/2004 in 2018, more than double the 2011 figure.
- In the US, the official rate was 0.28 involuntary denied boardings per 10,000 passengers in 2025, and it fell to 0.21 in the first half of 2026.
- US airlines found about 12 volunteers for every passenger they bumped in 2025. In the EU estimate, involuntary cases made up about 84% of all denied boardings.
How Many Passengers Are Denied Boarding in Europe?
The most recent EU-wide figures come from a study by the consultancy Steer for the European Commission, published in January 2020. It estimated denied boarding numbers from data supplied by airlines, because no industry-wide source exists.
Source: Steer, Study on the current level of protection of air passenger rights in the EU, final report for the European Commission (DG MOVE), January 2020, Table 2.12. Estimate for flights in scope of Regulation (EC) No 261/2004.
The estimate more than doubled between 2011 and 2018, while total passengers in scope of the Regulation grew by about a third over the same period. The jump in 2018 alone was close to 40%. Steer is open about the limits: only a small number of airlines supplied data, none before 2014, and the earlier years extend the 2014 to 2018 trend backwards. The study also cut each figure by 10% because Ryanair, then close to a tenth of EU traffic, says it does not overbook. Treat these numbers as an order of magnitude.
Europe vs the United States: Comparing the Rates
Converting both regions to the same unit, denied boardings per 10,000 passengers, shows how far apart the published figures are. Both bars use 2018, the last year with an EU estimate.
Source: Steer for the European Commission, January 2020 (EU); US Department of Transportation, Air Travel Consumer Report, February 2020 (US, full year 2018). AirAdvisor calculation per 10,000 passengers.
On these figures, a passenger in the EU estimate was roughly 100 times more likely to be denied boarding against their will than a passenger on a large US airline in 2018: roughly 15 per 10,000 against 0.14. Part of that gap comes from definitions. The US count only includes passengers bumped from oversold flights, while EU law defines denied boarding as any refusal to carry a passenger who turned up on time, unless there are reasonable grounds such as health, safety or security. The EU figure is also a modelled estimate. Even allowing for both caveats, the difference is large enough to show that bumping is far less common on US carriers than the EU estimate suggests for Europe.
Voluntary vs Involuntary Bumping
Both systems require airlines to ask for volunteers before refusing anyone a seat. What happens next looks very different on each side of the Atlantic.
Source: Steer for the European Commission, January 2020 (EU 2018); US Department of Transportation, Air Travel Consumer Reports, February 2020 and February 2026 (US).
In the EU estimate, only about 16% of denied boardings in 2018 were volunteers. In the US, volunteers made up 92% in 2025. US rules let airlines offer volunteers any amount of money or vouchers, and passengers can negotiate, so carriers can raise the offer until someone accepts. Article 4 of the EU Regulation also leaves the benefits for volunteers to be agreed between the airline and the passenger, but the airline data in the Steer study shows far fewer people giving up seats this way.
What EU261 Pays When You Are Denied Boarding
Under Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, an airline that bumps a passenger against their will must pay compensation immediately, plus care and a choice between a refund and an alternative flight. The amount depends on flight distance.
Source: Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, Articles 4 and 7, EUR-Lex.
Compensation is 250, 400 or 600 euros, and every intra-EU flight over 1,500 km falls in the 400 euro band. The airline may halve the payment if it reroutes the passenger and the new flight arrives within two, three or four hours of the original time, depending on distance. In the UK, the retained version of the rules sets the same bands at £220, £350 and £520. The US works differently: bumped passengers get 200% of the one-way fare, capped at $1,075, for shorter delays, and 400%, capped at $2,150, for longer ones, with nothing owed if the airline gets them to their destination within an hour of the original arrival time.
Not every eligible passenger receives the money. Steer estimated that airlines met their denied boarding compensation obligations in about 84% of cases in 2018, and that the share of eligible passengers who successfully claimed denied boarding compensation rose from 6% in 2011 to 30% in 2018. Because the Regulation requires payment without a claim, Steer read those claims as a sign that some airlines do not pay automatically.
Denied Boarding in UK Passenger Complaints
UK complaint data gives a more recent view. AviationADR, one of the dispute resolution bodies approved by the UK Civil Aviation Authority, publishes a yearly breakdown of the air passenger rights disputes it receives.
Source: AviationADR (Consumer Dispute Resolution Limited), Annual Report for 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026, published 10 July 2026. Shares of 42,174 disputes under EU Regulation 261/2004 as retained in UK law.
Denied boarding made up 6.2% of passenger rights disputes at AviationADR, or 2,602 cases, almost all of them about compensation. Delays and cancellations account for most of the rest. The European Commission's 2014 review of national enforcement bodies found a similar share: denied boarding was 3% of complaints in 2010 and 7% in both 2011 and 2012, out of 91,726, 52,675 and 56,478 complaints in those years. For wider context on disruption in the region, see our flight delay statistics for the EU and UK.
US Denied Boarding Rates Over Ten Years
The US Department of Transportation has published oversales data for decades, which makes it the best public benchmark. Rates are counted per 10,000 passengers and cover the largest US airlines.
Source: US Department of Transportation, Air Travel Consumer Reports, February issues 2017 to 2026 (full-year data) and August 2026 (January to June 2026).
The US rate fell from 0.74 in 2015 to 0.14 in 2018, the lowest full year outside the pandemic. It then climbed back to around 0.3 as travel recovered, and held at 0.28 in both 2024 and 2025. The first half of 2026 brought a clear drop to 0.21, with the April to June quarter at 0.15. In absolute numbers, US airlines bumped 24,596 passengers against their will in 2025, out of 891 million passengers. For more on how US travellers rate their airlines, see our US airline complaints statistics.
Which US Airlines Bump the Most Passengers?
DOT data also ranks each airline. This chart uses the operating carrier, which shows the regional airlines that fly smaller jets under the big brands.
Source: US Department of Transportation, Air Travel Consumer Report, February 2026 (oversales data for January to December 2025). Covers domestic flights and international flights departing the United States.
Frontier had by far the highest rate in 2025, at 2.51 per 10,000 passengers and 8,087 people bumped, roughly nine times the industry average. Three regional airlines that fly for American Eagle, PSA, Republic and Envoy, came next. At the other end, Delta reported zero involuntary denied boardings across 153 million passengers on its own flights, and Allegiant also reported none. Delta still had 84,036 passengers give up their seats voluntarily, the most of any operating airline. You can compare the size of these carriers in our largest airlines in North America ranking.
The Latest Data: First Half of 2026
The most recent DOT figures cover January to June 2026. They show who improved and who slipped compared with the same months of 2025.
Source: US Department of Transportation, Air Travel Consumer Report, August 2026 (oversales data for January to June 2026). Marketing carriers, including branded codeshare partners where noted.
Frontier roughly halved its rate, from 2.79 to 1.42, and American's network fell from 0.71 to 0.52. Spirit moved the other way, from 0.22 to 0.91, while carrying less than half as many passengers as a year earlier. Across all reporting airlines, involuntary denied boardings fell from 12,420 to 8,975, even though passenger numbers rose slightly. Delta again bumped nobody.
How Many Volunteers US Airlines Find
The ratio of volunteers to bumped passengers shows how hard airlines work to fill an oversold flight without forcing anyone off.
Source: US Department of Transportation, Air Travel Consumer Reports, February issues 2017 to 2026. AirAdvisor calculation.
From 2015 to 2017, US airlines found 10 to 13 volunteers for every passenger they bumped. The ratio rose sharply to 31 in 2018 and stayed above 20 in 2019 and 2020, before settling back to about 11 or 12 a year since 2022. In 2025, 290,413 passengers took a voluntary deal against 24,596 who were bumped. The EU estimate points the opposite way, with roughly five involuntary denied boardings for every volunteer in 2018.
References and Sources
- US Department of Transportation, Office of Aviation Consumer Protection, Air Travel Consumer Report, February 2026 (oversales January to December 2025), updated 20 March 2026: transportation.gov
- US Department of Transportation, Air Travel Consumer Report, August 2026 (oversales January to June 2026): transportation.gov
- US Department of Transportation, Air Travel Consumer Reports, February 2017, February 2019, February 2020, February 2021, February 2023 and February 2025 (full-year oversales data): transportation.gov archive
- US Department of Transportation, Bumping and Oversales, last updated 26 September 2025: transportation.gov
- Steer, Study on the current level of protection of air passenger rights in the EU, final report for the European Commission, DG MOVE, January 2020: op.europa.eu
- European Commission, Commission Staff Working Document SWD(2014) 156, Complaint handling and enforcement by Member States of the Air Passenger Rights Regulations, 7 May 2014: copy at edz.bib.uni-mannheim.de
- Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council on compensation and assistance to passengers in the event of denied boarding and of cancellation or long delay of flights: eur-lex.europa.eu
- Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, Article 7, as retained in UK law: legislation.gov.uk
- AviationADR (Consumer Dispute Resolution Limited), Annual Report, 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026, published 10 July 2026: aviationadr.org.uk
- Ryanair, Notice of your rights in the event of denied boarding, flight delay or flight cancellation (Version 11): ryanair.com
Methodology
This article compares the only EU-wide estimate of denied boarding with official US statistics, so each figure is labelled with the region it covers. The EU figures come from Steer's January 2020 study for the European Commission and cover passengers on flights in scope of Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 from 2011 to 2018. Steer built them from data supplied by a small number of airlines for 2014 to 2018, extended the trend back to 2011, and reduced each value by 10% to reflect Ryanair's no-overbooking policy. No EU institution or Eurostat publishes an official count of denied boarding, and we found no newer EU-wide estimate. EU complaint shares come from the Commission's 2014 staff working document on national enforcement bodies, which covers 2010 to 2012.
US figures come from the oversales tables in the US Department of Transportation's Air Travel Consumer Report. They cover US airlines with at least 0.5% of domestic scheduled passenger revenue, on domestic flights and international flights departing the US, and count only passengers bumped from oversold flights. For each year we used the latest restated full-year total: marketing carriers including branded codeshare partners from 2018 onwards, and operating carriers for 2015 to 2017, when DOT did not yet report by marketing carrier. The airline ranking for 2025 uses operating carriers; the first-half 2026 comparison uses marketing carriers. Per 10,000 rates for the EU, and the US voluntary rate, are AirAdvisor calculations from the published counts and passenger totals. The volunteers ratio divides voluntary by involuntary denied boardings. UK dispute shares are AirAdvisor calculations from AviationADR's published complaint types, grouping compensation, refund, expenses and care claims under delay, cancellation or denied boarding. Figures are rounded to one decimal place. All data is historical; no forecasts are used.
