Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-10-23-Speech-3-280"
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"en.20021023.6.3-280"2
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".
Mr President, I am pleased to have the opportunity to present this important proposal to Parliament. It forms part of our policy of giving transport a human face, in other words, looking after citizens’ rights, passengers’ rights, as we announced in our White Paper.
It is difficult for passengers to accept being denied boarding. They have paid for their ticket, reserved their seat and arrived at the airport in time for check-in only to be told that there are no seats on the plane, because the airline has overbooked or simply that some other hitch has occurred. This is incomprehensible to members of the public and causes major disruption and feelings of frustration and finally, of resentment. Every year, within the Community, around 250 000 people – having paid for their ticket and completed all the formalities – are denied boarding.
Although it acknowledged that the airlines needed flexibility in order to manage capacity, the European Community adopted in 1991 – on the eve of the adoption of final legislation on liberalisation – a Regulation on denied boarding due to overbooking which guarantees the passengers affected financial compensation and assistance, but which is extremely limited. The Commission has therefore proposed a new regulation in order considerably to reduce the number of people denied boarding and to improve protection for those concerned.
When airlines plan to deny boarding, they shall be obliged, first of all, to ask for volunteers to give up their seats in exchange for specified benefits; they may only deny boarding to passengers against their will if there are not enough volunteers. In order for the Regulation to be effective, however, it must provide a powerful incentive for people to volunteer. We have therefore proposed a significant increase in compensation, above the current levels, which have partly been absorbed by inflation and which these days do not dissuade airlines from denying boarding.
Naturally, when the airlines manage to find volunteers, they will not pay this compensation. The Commission’s position is flexible with regard to the exact amounts, provided that they are substantial enough to encourage the airlines to find volunteers.
Our proposal will also eliminate the restrictions of the current Regulation. First of all, it will extend the rights of passengers who are denied boarding to all passengers whose flights are cancelled. Ultimately, cancellation equates to universal denied boarding for an entire flight. Only cancellations for which the corresponding airline is responsible would be covered, however, because, obviously, in some circumstances, it would be unfair for the airline to bear sole responsibility.
Secondly, the proposed Regulation will establish fundamental rights for passengers who suffer delays, allowing them to organise their journey by other means, instead of waiting indefinitely at the airport. In this case, however, they would not be entitled to compensation. Lastly, our proposal will grant all of these rights to passengers flying on both scheduled and charter flights. Passengers on package holidays will therefore benefit in the same way as those who only buy a plane ticket. It would not be fair to treat passengers differently when they have to face similar difficulties.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, these are the essential points of our proposal, which substantially increases protection for passengers in the event of problems with their flights and which aims to significantly improve the quality of service and therefore increase guarantees for citizens."@en1
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