A contract of carriage is a contract between a carrier of goods or passengers and the consignor, consignee or

passenger A passenger (also abbreviated as pax) is a person who travels in a vehicle, but does not bear any responsibility for the tasks required for that vehicle to arrive at its destination or otherwise operate the vehicle, and is not a steward. The ...

. Contracts of carriage typically define the rights, duties and liabilities of parties to the contract, addressing topics such as acts of God and including clauses such as (removing liability for extraordinary occurrences beyond control of the parties). Among common carriers, they are usually evidenced by standard

terms and conditions A contractual term is "any provision forming part of a contract". Each term gives rise to a contractual obligation, the breach of which may give rise to litigation. Not all terms are stated expressly and some terms carry less legal gravity as ...

printed on the reverse of a ticket or carriage document. Notification of a shipment’s arrival is usually sent to the "notify party", whose address appears on the shipping document. This party is usually either the buyer or the

importer An import is the receiving country in an export from the sending country. Importation and exportation are the defining financial transactions of international trade. In international trade, the importation and exportation of goods are limited ...

Air travel

In July 2010, it became widely public that

Southwest Airlines Southwest Airlines Co., typically referred to as Southwest, is one of the major airlines of the United States and the world's largest low-cost carrier. It is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and has scheduled service to 121 destinations in the U ...

had classified mechanical difficulties as an

act of God In legal usage in the English-speaking world, an act of God is a natural hazard outside human control, such as an earthquake or tsunami, for which no person can be held responsible. An act of God may amount to an exception to liability in con ...

in their contract of carriage, expanding the definition formerly shared with Delta, American, Continental and United. This was later clarified by the airline as mechanical difficulties beyond the airline's control, as for instance the failure of the air traffic control system, or fuel delivery systems operated by airports.

Involuntary denied boarding

Airlines may sell more tickets for a flight than the number of seats that are actually available. This overselling can result in too many passengers turning up for a flight. When this happens, the airline first asks for volunteers to give up their seat in return for compensation. However, if there are not enough volunteers, the airline itself designates which passengers will have to give up their seats. This process is called involuntary denied boarding or (less formally) bumping. The rate of passengers who are involuntarily denied boarding is around 1 in 10,000 and has been falling for the 25 years between 1990 and 2015. According to aviation analyst Henry Harteveldt, the airline's contract of carriage favors the company, not the passenger. Involuntary denial of boarding is not uncommon but removal after boarding because the seat is needed by others is "exceedingly rare". Nonetheless, an airline has a right to do so based on the contract, in his view. "Remember, it is their aircraft and their seat — you're just renting it to get from point A to point B," Harteveldt told Business Insider.

Rail travel

Cross-border European railway tickets are covered by the

CIV Civ or CIV may refer to: Arts and entertainment * CIV (band), a punk rock music band * Civ (imprint), an imprint of VDM Publishing devoted to the reproduction of Wikipedia content * ''Civilization'' (1980 board game) * ''Civilization'' (series) ...

conditions of sale.

References

External links

;Airline contracts
Contract of Carriage
Hawaiian Airlines. Viewed 23 December 2012.
Contract of Carriage
Alaska Airlines. Viewed 11 April 2008.
Terms and conditions

FedEx FedEx Corporation, formerly Federal Express Corporation and later FDX Corporation, is an American multinational conglomerate holding company focused on transportation, e-commerce and business services based in Memphis, Tennessee. The name "Fe ...

. Viewed 3 April 2006. Public transport fare collection Freight transport Transport law Contract law Terms of service {{transport-stub