On Tuesday 9 April, members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN) held talks with representatives of the European Commission on the ‘passenger rights’ legislative package.
Presented in November 2023, this package comprises three texts: a proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the EU Council on passenger rights in multimodal transport, as well as the revision of the regulation on passenger rights and the directive on the protection of passengers (see EUROPE 13303/5, 13303/6).
The Commission representatives outlined the main aspects of these measures. The aim is to clarify information, particularly with regard to refunds for tickets purchased via intermediaries and the transfer of information. For multimodal travel, this is an autonomous regulation which also incorporates similar rules proposed in the omnibus regulation for the application of passenger rights.
“We want to make sure that there is transparency and clarity for the passengers, that there is a separate nature of tickets and that this leads to a different level of passenger rights being guaranteed”, stressed the Commission representative.
For Jan-Christoph Oetjen (Renew Europe, German), the rapporteur on the revised directive on traveller protection, the definition of travel packages and related travel arrangements needs to be clarified. He fears that by simplifying the concept and broadening the scope, transport operators’ liability will be too diffuse. He also called for standardised reimbursement procedures.
Achille Variati (S&D, Italian), the rapporteur on the revised regulation, would like to take the proposals further by taking greater account of vulnerable travellers, such as the elderly and large families. Under the current proposal, if the airline requests that a person with reduced mobility (PRM) travel with an assistant, the assistant will travel free of charge. The MEP would like to see this measure extended to other modes of transport, even though many companies already effectively apply it.
Finally, Jens Gieseke (EPP, German), the rapporteur for the text on multimodal journeys, noted that these represented only 0.7% of journeys in 2019 and asked whether this text might help increase this figure.
For the Commission representative, the important thing is to ensure passenger rights for multimodal journeys, which include a train journey to a foreign airport, for example. He pointed out that bus and metro journeys to and from the airport are excluded from the scope of application. “There needs to be clarity to cover multimodal tickets so that we can take a real step forward on multimodal transport”, he concluded. (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)