Luxembourg, 03/10/2002 (Agence Europe) - The deliberations of the Transport Council, on Thursday in Luxembourg, on passenger compensation for refused embarkation, showed that there is a majority in Member States who support compensation for passengers when a flight is cancelled just one week before the planned departure. On the other hand, there is no clear majority on the two other issues raised by the Presidency which relate to including package deals in the scope of the directive and the amount of compensation, noted Council President Flemming Hansen.
Package holidays. The Commission and seven Member States (Ireland, Sweden, Portugal, Greece, Belgium, Italy and Luxembourg) call for passengers who have booked a flight in a package deal to be compensated if flights are cancelled or embarkation refused due to overbooking. Germany, Denmark and to a certain extent the United Kingdom are opposed to this. The Netherlands and Denmark fear a legal conflict with the European legislation on package deals. Spain and Austria would like the question to be the subject of a more detailed examination. According to the Presidency, there is therefore a small majority in favour of including package holidays but the work of the Council will continue.
Amount of compensation. Seven Member States (Ireland, Greece, France, Belgium, ,Luxembourg, Denmark and Sweden) are in favour of the compensatory amounts proposed by the Parliament rapporteur (Lisi: see EUROPE of 19 September, p.17): - 300 euros for flights of less than 1,000 km, 600 euros for flights of 1,000 to 3,500, and 900 euros for flights of over 3,500 km. The Commission had proposed multiplying by five the amount of current compensations (750 euros for flights under 3,500 km and 1,500 euros for flights of over 3,500 km). Due to its geographical situation, Sweden would like internal flights to be systematically included in the lowest compensation category, whatever the distance.
In varying degrees, the other Member States support the proposal put forward by the Presidency and the EP Committee on Transport (which did not follow its rapporteur) to reduce compensation to 200, 400 and 600 euros. Supporting the Danish compromise, Germany would nonetheless like the last threshold to be increased to 4,000 km in order to include the Canary Isles in practice. The Netherlands and Austria would only like two thresholds of compensation. Portugal insisted that the air companies should not be over-loaded financially in a difficult economic period and suggested that the compensation should never exceed the price of the air ticket. Ireland, the United Kingdom, France and Spain above all pointed out that they were willing to accept a compromise. The Presidency concluded that there could be a majority in favour of reducing compensation thresholds, by bringing them down to just two levels.
Time for compensation. The Commission had proposed that passengers should be systematically reimbursed when a flight is cancelled within the two weeks prior to departure. Spain and Finland are the most firmly in favour of this. Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Greece and Ireland recommend just one week. Between the two, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Luxembourg and Denmark would be more in favour of 14 days, but they seem ready to accept a compromise. The Presidency considers that, on this basis, there is a majority in favour of fixing the delay at one week.