Delayed air travellers' compo doubled

[SN30952]

Airline passengers who are bumped off flights or suffer serious delays will receive automatic compensation under rules agreed by the EU yesterday.
For the first time, passengers on chartered flights will be covered, as will passengers whose flights have been cancelled because enough seats were not sold.
An estimated 250,000 passengers a year are left behind at airports, because airlines regularly overbook their flights, while hundreds of thousands more miss connecting flights, or have to delay the start of their holiday.

Under the new rules, ticket holders whose flights are overbooked or cancelled for commercial reasons will receive:
600 Euro compensation, double the previous amount.
Passengers whose flights are delayed will be entitled to have a free meal, and phonecalls.
If passengers are delayed until the next day, they will be entitled to hotel accommodation and transport between the airport, and place of accommodation.

In cases of delays longer than five hours, passengers will be also offered reimbursement within seven days, if the flight is no longer serving any purpose in relation to the passenger's original travel plan if for instance they missed a meeting as a result.

The airline industry complained that the new rules would push up the price of flights, especially those of the low-cost airlines.
However, a spokesperson for the Commission, Gilles Gantelet, yesterday said it should not affect low cost airlines very much as they tend not to overbook their flights.
In extraordinary circumstances, such as bad weather when a flight cannot take off, the compensation package will not apply.
The new deal is expected to be in place before next summer, in time for the holiday season. Other transport systems such as trains, buses, and ferries are putting in place a charter of rights for passengers, but if it does not cover passengers sufficiently, the commission will legislate for it, he added.
A Ryanair spokesperson said the fines would not affect the low-cost airline. "If the EU was really serious about eliminating overbookings they would just outlaw the practice. This will not impact on Ryanair as we don't overbook."

There are also plans to extend this to all travellers using trains, buses, and ferries.