Clarifying and fine-tuning passenger rights Sylviane Lust - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

“Clarifying and fine-tuning passenger rights” Sylviane Lust Director-General, IACA Air Passenger Rights Seminar - 30 May 2012

Regulation 261: original purpose � Commission’s Explanatory Memorandum of Proposal for a Regulation (COM 2001/784 ; 21.12.2001, para 5) • “protect passengers adequately when confronted by denied boarding or cancellation” • “dissuade carriers from excessive denial of boarding or cancellation” • “give incentives to balance the commercial advantages against to cost to passengers” = protection against commercial decisions

Regulation 261: original purpose � A delay is never a commercial decision, therefore no compensation under 261 � All events outside an airline’s control are by definition not commercial decisions � Provision on ‘extraordinary circumstances’ exonerates airlines from paying compenstation

Regulation 261: poor drafting � Too vague a description of ‘extraodinary circumstances’ � ECJ’s decisions � Airlines’ legitimate expectation: a balanced approach. …. the legislator must take into account the principal objective of the act, but “all the interests involved” Case C- 127/07 Arcelor

Regulation 261: ECJ’s decisions � Sturgeon: creates new law � Wallentin and McDonagh: ignore complex operating environment, the chain of suppliers � Decisions unbalanced, disproportionate and political instead of legal � Airlines have become insurers of last resort

Airlines expect “ good regulation ” from legislators � Extraordinary circumstances to be reviewed • Clarification now, not in 2014 • Way-out: e.g. non-exhaustive list of cases � Revision not to be based on Sturgeon / Wallentin cases � Genuine and automatic “legal redress” • Airlines to deduct cost of compliance from invoices when disruptions caused by their providers • Airlines to remain first contact point for passengers � Limit on care/assistance (incl. for package passengers)

Airlines expect “ good regulation ” from legislators � Good regulation = reasonable and proportionate protection of the weakest � Passengers are weaker than the airlines � But airlines are weaker than • Their monopoly providers • Weather conditions • Natural disasters…

It is time to fix this !