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EU international locations have agreed to extend the period of time passengers must wait earlier than they’ll declare compensation for a delayed flight after 12 years of negotiations.
Passengers will solely have the ability to apply for compensation for short-haul flights if they’re delayed for 4 hours or extra, whereas for long-haul flights they must wait six hours, EU transport ministers stated on Thursday.
Presently, passengers can apply for compensation if any flight is greater than three hours delayed.
Ministers additionally agreed, as a part of revisions to 31 totally different air passenger rights, to extend the quantity of compensation marginally for these delayed on short-haul flights from €250 to €300, however minimize it for long-haul flights from €600 to €500.
Different rights agreed included automating varieties for compensation, restrictions to grounds for denying reimbursement and placing extra duty on airways to offer rerouting and lodging when there are lengthy delays, in addition to strengthened rights for passengers with disabilities.
The revision of the EU’s air passenger rights was first proposed in 2013 by the European Fee, nevertheless it has taken 12 years for EU states to come back to an settlement on the timeframe for compensation.
Airways argued that mandating an extended delay threshold would give them a “combating likelihood to minimise delays and keep away from flight cancellations”, the trade physique Airways for Europe (A4E) stated in a letter to the German minister for transport this week.
A4E represents Europe’s main airways, together with Lufthansa, Air France-KLM and Ryanair.
It stated that 70 per cent of flights that find yourself being cancelled may very well be saved at a five-hour threshold “benefiting as much as 10mn passengers per yr”.
“Europe has been ready for clear and workable passenger rights for 12 years and member states have fallen on the last hurdle to ship . . . member states have diluted the European Fee’s unique proposal and launched much more complexity,” A4E stated in a press release.
The European Fee initially proposed extending the time to 5 hours for short-haul flights and 9 for long-haul.
Politicians, nevertheless, have veered away from delivering the politically unpalatable message that passengers must lose out. Germany was one of many strongest opponents of accelerating the bounds, together with Spain.
In a press release on Thursday, German lawmakers from the European Folks’s Occasion, Europe’s largest political group, stated that “lowering the rights to compensation for air passengers could be a step within the mistaken route. Reimbursement after a three-hour delay has been customary for a few years and will stay so”.
“No politician desires to say greater than 4 hours,” one senior EU diplomat stated.
The member states must negotiate with the European parliament earlier than the revisions change into last regulation.
