Originally Posted by
jsloan
No it doesn't. It provides financial motives for airlines to ignore maintenance issues in favor of getting the flight out on time, It further provides motives for them to pad their schedules unreasonably, increase minimum connection times beyond what some people would otherwise be willing to risk, etc.
I'm not saying that carriers actually make these trade-offs, but it's unquestionably what the actual financial motivations are.
I'm also not able to opine on this point in a knowledgeable manner, and it's possible, if not likely, that EC 261 misses the mark, but I do like the idea of at least attempting to incentivize airlines to deliver services as promised. Furthermore, it's safe to say that passengers self insuring does not accomplish this at all.