No seat fee for children under 14 sitting next to accompanying person

MEPs have secured an air passenger rules deal that maintains compensation for three-hour delays, ensures faster reimbursement, fee-free child seating and flight price transparency.

On Monday evening, a provisional agreement on a review of air passenger rights rules reached by Parliament and Council negotiators secured unanimous backing from the EP delegation to the so-called Conciliation Committee. The deal seeks to protect passengers against travel disruption, such as denied boarding and delayed or cancelled flights. The rules had not been updated since 2004.

Compensation and duty of care

Parliament’s negotiators resisted a push to weaken air passenger rights. Under the deal, air travellers maintain the right to be reimbursed or re-routed in case of cancellation, and to claim compensation if a flight is delayed by more than three hours, if it is cancelled less than 14 days before a flight, or if they are denied boarding.

Compensation for delayed or cancelled flights will depend on flight distance: €250 for journeys up to 1,500 km, €400 for journeys between 1,500 km and 3,500 km, and €600 for all other longer journeys. Air carriers will have the possibility to reduce compensation by 50% for their longest journeys if passengers are offered re-routing to their final destination following travel disruption, or if the delay at arrival does not last more than four hours.

However, airlines will be able to avoid paying compensation, if the delay or cancellation was caused by events beyond their control. The new rules will have an open list of these extraordinary circumstances, including for instance natural disasters, war, weather conditions, unruly passengers, or airport, air navigation or groundhandling service provider strikes.

In all cases air operators will have a duty to take care of stranded passengers by providing refreshments every two hours of waiting time, a meal after three hours, and, if needed during long delays, an overnight stay of a maximum of three nights, the agreement says.

Faster and easier reimbursement

Air carriers will need to electronically provide passengers facing travel disruptions (delay or cancellation) with clear instructions on how to submit a request for compensation within four days of the termination of their journey. MEPs ensured that passengers are not obliged to have a user account or to use a specific application to receive this information. Air passengers will have nine months to file a compensation request, while airlines will have 30 days to pay the compensation or invoke extraordinary circumstances, explain why compensation will not be provided and refer passengers to complaint handling steps, the deal says.

Protecting vulnerable passengers

MEPs ensured passengers with disabilities and reduced mobility (PRM) will have the right to compensation, rerouting and assistance by airlines if they miss a flight due to the airport’s failure to help them reach the gate on time. They also made sure that families with kids are not separated during seating, by obliging air carriers to ensure that any person accompanying a child below the age of 14 should be seated on an adjacent seat without paying extra. The same right will apply to passengers with disabilities and reduced mobility, and to pregnant women.

Upgrading passenger rights

The new rules now include the right to carry on board, without additional fee, one personal item, such as a small bag or backpack. On the insistence of MEPs price transparency and the comparability of air tickets was increased by obliging airlines, intermediaries and search portals to always display the air fare inclusive of carry-on luggage at the outset of the book process. Negotiators agreed that airlines may offer cheaper tickets for passengers who choose voluntarily to travel without hand luggage.

Air passengers will no longer be charged additional fees for correcting name spelling errors or for getting a printed version of a boarding pass if they have already checked in. MEPs also secured passengers the right to obtain boarding passes digitally upon check-in, without any further request or obligation to have a user account or a specific application. In addition, passengers shall not be denied boarding on the grounds that they used their own printed version of a digitally issued boarding pass, the agreement says.

Next steps

Under the third reading procedure, the provisional agreement reached in the Conciliation Committee has to be confirmed by both Parliament and the Council within the next six weeks, with a possibility to extend this deadline by a further two weeks. The two institutions will now vote separately on the joint text after its legal-linguistic revision. The European Parliament is planning to vote on the agreement during its July plenary session.

Press conference

On Monday at 19:45, key negotiators, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, Cyprus minister of transport Alexis Vafeades, EU Commissioner for sustainable transport and tourism Apostolos Tzitzikostas, Parliament’s rapporteur Andrey Novakov (EPP, BG) and Transport and Tourism Committee Vice-chair Virginijus Sinkevičius (Greens, LT) took place a briefing with journalists on the upcoming EU air passenger rights changes.