travis bickle

Wednesday, February 16, 2005
PARIS The European Union will impose the world's toughest rules on airlines for passenger rights on Thursday, potentially requiring refunds and penalty payments even if a flight is canceled or significantly delayed by bad weather or mechanical problems.
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full article at: http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/02/...ss/rights.html

underpressure

I suppose when you have regulated airlines flying subsidized airplane for government backed airlines, you could do this.

tcook052

IMHO, it's about time. For too long some of those same government-backed airlines dealt with the public any way they liked since they weren't obliged to provide any compensation as has been the case since forever in the U.S. Making the airlines more accountable to the passenger who is paying to fly can't be an entirely bad thing, at least to me.

MADflyer

The new Air Passenger Rights as adopted by the European Union in effect from Thursday February 17 2005.

http://europa.eu.int/comm/transport/..._poster_en.pdf

Cascadia

watch fares go up and up

MADflyer

Well put.

In Europe you cant forget the habits of the large charter side of the industry as well. The once a year flyers or in Scandinavia the 2 times a year flyers who you see on the news reports when there holiday has been destroyed. I recall seeing stories of them being stranded for days sometimes as those flights often depart on once a week schedules.

This also effects the low-cost industry. The Ryanairs and Easyjets will not be able to continue with their treatment of passengers and the cancellations of flights that are commonplace when they dont have PAX. This could actually be seen as protectionistic of the national carriers as these low cost airlines have been creating new markets and causing price wars while not taking any responsibility for their actions and lack of service when a problem occurs.

That said, this may help to expediate the departure of several carriers who have a long history of poor passenger treatment. Airlines like KL that give fair service in terminal but have a horrible baggage delay reputation may be affected drastically. They will go screaming all the way how unfair it is as the airport is the cause of their bagage woes.

My pics for most affected are .... AL, AF, KL and IB.

MADflyer

The fact is that most of these carriers are publicly traded and have not been directly subsidized for years. The largest stockholders are often the government of the national carriers but they operate somewhat under market conditions.

Indirect subsidies have been disappearing as well such as that government employees in Sweden used to only fly SAS business class. Last i heard they still fly business class but it is put out for competive bids and personal preferences can be taken into consideration. They were not allowed to take FF miles.

These rules are very simmilar to those that are standard in the USA.

It is a quality of life factor. Consumer protection is necessary to a point.

FlyingNone

I think the whole thing rots. All well and good, let them apply the rules to European carriers but the rules also apply to U.S. flag carriers that go to Europe - American, Delta, United, etc. Why should they be brought under EU Govt rules. How can anyone really expect compensation for weather delays and cancellations ?

If I were part of the European flying public I'd pray for rain -- it could be very lucrative to go to the airport for a cheap flight within Europe or elsewhere and be delayed or cancelled thereby acquiring meals, transportation, a hotel room and probably a free airline ticket. This is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard of. Are they running airlines or charities ?

MADflyer

The rules apply only to EU carriers on flights inbound to EU and other carriers only for outbound from a EU airport.

On my last CO flight in January from IAH to LGW we were delayed about 45 minutes after a very smooth boarding. They announced that it was as they were loading the last bags. Any frequent traveler new what that meant. They were removing the bags of bumped connecting passangers that were denied boarding as I had gotten a text message checking that I got on as there were over 35 PAX bumped due to overbooking.

They would not even be covered by this new directive.

Are you saying that those 35! people should have no rights? I think they might be a little more careful. They stole at least 15 hours of those peoples lives. Should that not be compensated?

And as far as weather goes I wonder how glad they are when they can cancel flights on a winter day with a low load factor and then lie to people and say it is weather.

I am amazed at how often they lie to PAX over the intercom and then you overhear the Purser and crew discussing the truth.

tcook052

I fail to see why the new E.U. policy is so outrageous. Don't most American pax expect and demand compensation when flights are delayed or cancelled or overbooked? Maybe not because of weather, but as sure as shooting any FT FFP board talks about travel vouchers given out by airlines for delays/cancellations/overbooking on a regular basis. So why the conspiracy theory when the E.U. adopts a similiar policy?

FlyingNone

Sorry, I really did mean just the weather delays and weather cancellations. Mechanical and crew delays are another story and may justify compensation. However, I just don't agree that airlines should somehow be responsible for hurricanes and snowstorms to the tune of putting people up in hotels and providing meals. Can every "bad/unsafe weather" cancellation be proven ? - probably not, but to hold the airlines responsible for obvious (very bad) weather out of their control is ridiculous.
Since trains are so heavily used in Europe are those railway lines also being held to the same standards/responsibility/compensations etc when the trains don't run ? What happens when the weather is so bad that every airline cancels flights (i.e. Frankfurt airport). Are they going to find thousands of hotel rooms around the airport or have to bus people 30-40 miles away?
Believe me, there is nothing pretty about a planeload of (one to two hundred) passengers bearing down on 2 or 3 agents asking questions about where/when/what's going to happen and then the screaming/yelling/complaining/demanding that takes place, usually instigated by one or two passengers (loudly). In the end everything is worked out but the drama preceding it is something to behold.

tcook052

Okay, gotcha. And, yes I agree the weather compensation idea does seem a bit over the top. Unless, that is, the E.U. has a master plan for controlling the continent's weather.

tcook052

Surprise! Europe's airlines not happy with new regulations:

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,...491637,00.html

New EU regulations aimed at giving passengers a fair deal when flights are overbooked, delayed or cancelled come into effect on Thursday -- but the new rules are getting a turbulent reception from European airlines.

UncleDude

Well That should help Kill Off Alitalia.

studentff

This is a USA example and not an EU one, but I think a case can be made for compensation for weather (or ATC) delay if a flight is habitually delayed due to weather.

Compensation doesn't make sense for a freak thunderstorm or rainstorm, but if a flight is 60+ minutes late 75+% of the time I think a case for compensation can be made. The airline knows the flight is going to be late almost all of the time and could choose to amend their schedule to reflect it, but instead they choose to ignore it and pretend e.g., that there is never a rainstorm at ORD in summer or never flow control problems at ORD.

Such flights exist. There was a UX (Skywest) IND-ORD flight that the federal BTS reported was late fully 100% of the time in Dec. even though the flight had 60+ minutes allocated for a 22 minute flight. The median delay was something like 56 minutes. And several other flights on various carriers late 80+% of the time. That's completely unacceptable, and as much as I hate government interference, a little pressure might make the airlines adjust their schedules to reflect reality.