The European ministers for transport expressed their willingness to resume discussions on air passenger rights at their EU Council meeting in Brussels on Thursday 5 December (see EUROPE 13524/14). They shared their priorities and objectives for this settlement.
The revision of the 2004 text, on the table since 2013, has been put on hold due to the Covid-19 pandemic (see EUROPE 12458/10). During the public debate, Bálint Sándor Nagy, the Hungarian Secretary of State, referred to the lack of definition and the differing interpretations of the text currently in force. “Industry players point out that the system is prohibitively expensive and that, overall, the rules are not uniform on a global scale”, he stressed. Not to mention that “the pandemic has exacerbated the situation and posed new problems”.
Despite the adoption of two political agreements in principle (‘general approach’) on passenger rights a few hours earlier (see EUROPE 13539/6), the regulation on air passengers is essential, according to the Commission representative. The representative recalled that the aim of the 2013 proposal was to “simplify the rules and to ensure the effective and consistent enforcement to the benefit of passengers and industry alike”.
For the Commission representative, the priorities are: information issues, the obligations of carriers, the handling of complaints and claims and the effective application of the rules. “Once these technical issues are resolved, the discussions could proceed to the politically more challenging topics, such as the definition of extraordinary circumstances and the level of compensation”, the representative said.
All the ministers stressed the importance of simplifying procedures and reducing administrative and financial burdens, both for airlines and for national authorities.
“We should be very cautious of putting too heavy a burden on operators of feeding feeder flights with respect to reimbursements and compensation”, warned Luxembourg’s Minister Yuricko Backes. “The unwanted effect would be a loss of connectivity or a further lengthening of connecting times, and this would be detrimental to passengers, and cannot be acceptable to us”, she added.
Several ministers, including those from Portugal, Germany, the Netherlands and Slovenia, have mentioned the need to compensate passengers in the event of airline insolvency or lack of liquidity, for example through a European guarantee fund. For claims, Slovenian State Secretary Andrej Rajh raised the idea of a single common form.
For their part, the Greek, Belgian and Dutch ministers said that their countries will pay particular attention to the concerns of people with reduced mobility. “Air transport is by far the mode of transport where they encounter the most difficulties”, pointed out the Belgian Georges Gilkinet.
Several other ministers and representatives, including those from Portugal, Croatia, Lithuania and France, spoke of the role of intermediary entities, such as travel agencies, which must play a greater role in the compensation procedure.
For further information: https://aeur.eu/f/epn (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)