Brussels, 16/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - The European Passenger Name Record (PNR) project on European airline passengers seeks to help fight terrorism and organised crime. It has now been put back on the table by the French government, following the Paris attacks on 13 November. The airlines, however, are concerned about the costs that setting up such a record system could create.
Although recognising the need to develop a European referencing system, the Association of European Airlines (AEA) informed EUROPE that “the transmission of aviation data systems to member states will have a significant impact on the airlines”, which are already suffering from the difficulties created by international competition (see other article).
The airlines are therefore advocating that the transmission of data on internal flights is only done on the basis of risk-based security assessments and not systematically. They are also calling for the surcharges generated by this collection of data to be assumed by the member states. Viktoria Vajnai, in charge of the AEA dossier, stated “We are talking about millions of euros”. She pointed out that this data was originally supposed to exclusively focus on the commercial field. The AEA considers it essential that the PNR respects the principles included in the directive on data protection.
It is also requesting that data collection is done at a European level in order to avoid “a patchwork of national systems” and that in this perspective it welcomes the vote at the European Parliament last July on the PNR directive (see EUROPE 11355) and demands that in the trialogue negotiations they seek to ensure that data collection respects the proportionality principle.
Vajnai said that “We regret that the PNR question has not been included in the 'aviation' package because it is DG HOME and not DG MOVE that is in charge of the dossier because PNR will have significant ramifications on the airlines”. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)