Fears EU plans to 'water down' air passengers' rights in review

Passengers in Europe currently enjoy the world's strongest system of consumer rights and compensation, thanks to a piece of EU legislation known as EU261.

Introduced in 2005, the legislation broadly comes in two parts: duty of care and compensation.

The duty of care gives airlines responsibilities such as offering an alternative if a flight is cancelled in advance, or providing food and accommodation to passengers whose flights suffer long delays.

Compensation is, as the name suggests, the payouts due to passengers whose flights suffer long delays – usually starting at two hours late for short-haul flights – or are cancelled.

READ ALSO: What are your rights if your flight is delayed or cancelled

Although exact details of the Commission's review – which has been heavily lobbied for by airlines – are yet to be revealed, it is feared that the current rules will be watered down.

Apostolos Tzitzikostas, the EU's sustainable transport and tourism commissioner, said: “Negotiations on passenger rights reform are moving forward.

"We cannot create rules that overwhelm the industry with financial burdens, that risk holding back growth. So we need to balance financial stability for airlines with strong protections for passengers.”

His words have been interpreted by many to mean that the EU intends to water down customer protections at the behest of airlines.

Anton Radchenko, CEO of AirAdvisor, air passenger advocate and consumer rights lawyer, said: "The proposed changes don’t aim to strengthen EU261, quite the opposite.

"If adopted, passengers would no longer be eligible for compensation after a three-hour delay. Instead, they’d have to wait five hours on short-haul flights, nine hours on medium-haul routes, and a staggering twelve hours on long-haul journeys before any compensation becomes legally due.

"Twelve hours of waiting, often in a foreign airport, without support, and not a single euro in return. Let’s be clear: this proposal doesn’t fix EU261. It guts it.

"The impact of this change will fall hardest on the most vulnerable, travellers on tight budgets who can’t afford private insurance."

Airlines, unsurprisingly, are more in favour of a change to the rules, arguing that EU261 is too restrictive.

Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary says that the rules end up costing passengers an extra €7 per flight, as airlines pass on the cost to customers, while Carsten Spohr, chief executive of the Lufthansa Group, told UK newspaper The Independent: "Passengers are paying more for EU261 than the airlines are making in profits."

The changes do have some supporters other than airlines, however, UK-based travel journalist Simon Calder argues in The Independent that the current rules need reform, writing: "The legislation was poorly drafted in the first place – with no proper definition of 'extraordinary circumstances' that let airlines off the compensation hook.

"A series of frankly bizarre court judgements have made the rules absurdly generous in some cases. Yet enforcement is so haphazard that many people fail to get the care and compensation they deserve."

Key points of EU261

The rules cover airlines that are registered in the EU – such as the Ireland-based Ryanair – or flights taking off from an EU or Schengen zone country. Since Brexit the rules no longer apply to the UK, but the British government has mostly "copied and pasted" it into UK legislation.

The duty-of-care part of the legislation means that airlines are supposed to take care of stranded passengers by offering them food, accommodation if necessary and help with onward travel.

In reality, this part of the legislation is not well policed and passengers are often simply told to make their own arrangements for accommodation and alternative travel and submit compensation claims to the airline later. Airlines do, however, routinely provide refreshments, usually in the form of food vouchers to passengers whose flights are delayed.

If your flight is cancelled more than 14 days in advance of your travel date you have the right to choose between getting your money back, getting the next available flight, or changing the booking completely for a later date. In reality, many airlines offer vouchers instead of refunds, and deliberately make the process of opting to get actual money as complicated as possible.

If your flight is cancelled less than 14 days in advance of departure you are entitled to compensation – ranging from €200 to €600 depending on the length of the flight. Airlines do not always make this clear to passengers.

If your flight is delayed you may be entitled to compensation depending on the length of the delay and whether you are travelling short-haul or long-haul.

The compensation will be €250 for short flights, €400 for longer flights and up to €600 for flights covering more than 3,500 kilometres.

Crucially, however, compensation for delays or cancellations is not paid if the problem is due to "extraordinary circumstances" – the exact definition of this in the legislation is vague but it generally applies to situations like extreme weather, political instability, security risks or problems with air traffic control.

Strikes are usually not considered to be extraordinary circumstances, neither are routine mechanical problems or staff shortages.