When tens of millions of air passengers were confronted with canceled flights during the corona crisis, their rights were often violated. That says the European Court of Auditors in a new, critical report. Many airlines have forced their customers to accept vouchers when they are legally obliged to return their money.
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“One of the many consequences of the pandemic is its harmful effect on air passenger rights in the EU,” said Annemie Turtelboom. The former federal and Flemish minister has been a member of the Court of Auditors since 2018 and is responsible for the new report. “While every effort has been made to support airlines and package tour operators, far too little has been done to protect the rights of millions of people in the EU.”
When a flight is cancelled, according to European law, a passenger must be offered an alternative flight or be reimbursed for the price of his ticket. But according to the Court’s auditors, many passengers missed out on the money they were entitled to in the early months of the crisis.
No obligation
This was even done with the agreement of the EU Member States. They assisted their airlines with high state aid and 15 of them, including Belgium, released airlines and package tour operators from their normal obligation to reimburse passengers. “In violation of EU law, many passengers were forced to accept vouchers, but these were not always protected against airline insolvency and caused refunds to be postponed,” says the Court of Auditors.
Most flights were canceled between March 2020 and March 2021. From mid-2020, the airlines started to reimburse their passengers, but in most cases this took much longer than the legally stipulated period. Passengers who did not buy their ticket directly from the airline had to “fight even harder”, according to the Court of Auditors, and in the worst case, got nothing in return.
The Court of Auditors is sharp for the Member States. They made no less than EUR 35 billion available in a year to keep the sector afloat, but they did not explicitly make the granting of aid dependent on the reimbursement of passengers, even though the European Commission had pointed out that they could. to do. “Ultimately,” the decision said, “member states left the reimbursement of air passengers solely to the airlines, which followed their own priorities for using the state aid.” As a result, passengers in the EU were sometimes treated very differently.
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