300 euro for flights less than 2,500km or less? Much more than the ticket price in many cases!
Keep in mind this is pure punitive compensation. This is in addition to all of your other rights, such as the right to a refund, re-route and care.
The duty of care applies at all applicable instances; cash compensation is additionally payable in other circumstances.
'Wants to limit the rights [of airlines] to restrict carry-on baggage" :shock: Gee, won't that make it fun! "Hey, I have the right to bring on my 20kg case AND this shopping bag of 15 bottles of duty free!"
Rather facetious example, don't you think?
I think basically it wants the host nation (or the EU) to be able to enforce carriers on particular hand baggage allowances. In particular, I would expect that airlines will simply need to be able to guarantee the ability for passengers to carry a coat, a bag and a shopping bag and they will set limits. If passengers or the regulators are not happy, the EU provision will give them legal standing to be able to test the limits in court.
I would expect that "reasonable" will be part of the regulation somewhere, so someone who contests in court to be able to carry your facetious example of baggage may not be successful in winning a claim.
I think this is a bit of a salvo at the low cost carriers, who can be notoriously tight on what constitutes hand baggage and have very tight limits. (That said, I have carried a coat on Ryanair before; they said nothing - might have helped that I wore the coat).
Too bloody right! Sounds pretty much like typical EU bureaucracy with little regard for the real world.
What I want from delayed flights is:
* To be kept informed from the point when a delay is likely / possible;
* To be kept informed, if I supply a text number or e-mail during the progress of the delay;
* To be automatically re-booked on another service of the same airline if the delay is projected to be, or becomes under 4 hours (if possible);
* To be automatically booked on ANY airline if the delay is over 4 hours;
* If an overnight delay, to have food and accommodation costs to the time of final departure refunded within reasonable limits, on production of receipts.
EVEN if the fare is LCC, or special, or an award.
All of the things you list in your wish list are precisely what is the aim of this applicable EU regulation. In fact, your last point marked "EVEN" is redundant because the previous iteration (or rather, current) covered all of these cases. Instead of a "soft" demand or requiring oblique interpretation of existing laws to be brought to court, the regulation gives immediate legal standing. If a carrier wants to break the regulation, you have a lot more grounds to litigate and have a better chance of success. In any other jurisdiction, your options are almost limited to oblique interpretation to get stuffed.
I think the whole "push up prices" thing is a furphy. I don't know why giving a legal standing to passenger rights (similar to DoT provisions) should necessarily and immediately increase prices - if a carrier has to pay out this kind of compensation on a regular basis to the point where it becomes financially crippling, something is very wrong with that carrier. The fact that these protections you list are now given legal standing all of the sudden is a
carte blanche to increase prices compared to if there was no such regulation and thus no such legal standing? As if to say that if airlines were not subject to these certain legal obligations, they could save substantial money by denying those rights or protections that would've otherwise been covered under the regulation?
Putting the list of rights you mention in a "charter" or anything less than regulation or indirect regulation gives airlines almost a free hand in either denying or delaying their obligations when something goes wrong. Of course, many airlines are not really out there to screw you when things go wrong......
Also, for those affected by involuntary downgrades, "Ticket Price" has been removed from article 10 to be replaced by "Flight Price":
I wonder if this definition will actually have some unintended consequences. I can see this might get odd for award tickets (i.e. calculating the "Flight Price" by apportioning the cost of the award in points).
it is not the passenger's fault if a service is advertised and the airline can't meet its obligations. A plane that is well maintained, and crew within hours, and operating your fleet to be able to perform the service advertised are all part of the contract.
if you can't meet that - why not pay appropriate compensation?
Except when a flight is grounded in an EU country due to war, or the airport staff decide to strike and chuck a whole bunch of vehicles on the runways......
But all things being controllable, fair point.
airlines have survived so far - even Ryanair.
Yes, with some kicking and screaming and much flipping the bird. They installed a new "tax" after they were pinged for an EU 261 infringement.
it is time we had something similar to this in Australia.
Would something like this be good in Australia?
Damn well yes!
Although it is good that EU 261 installs some rights with legal standing, in practice it is still difficult to make claims under the regulation. The process is not centralised, there are no particular limits on claims (could take 6 hours, 6 days, 6 weeks or 6 months!), and overall it is very inconvenient if the airline who is paying the compensation is not the country of residence of the complainant (which exacerbates the airline being lethargic on acting on a claim). The regulation needs to set hard limits and add processes so that passengers can actually have some confidence in making a claim. It should also increase penalties and passenger compensation if a claim goes to court, in order to discourage airlines from pushing the whole, "maybe if we placate that non-EU resident enough, they'll give up because they won't come to our country to sue us in court".
I would also revise the rules and rights with respect to airline changes (change of flights or cancellations) outside of 2 weeks before departure. At the moment, if a change or cancellation happens outside of 2 weeks before departure, you almost have no rights, except the right to a refund without penalty.
February 06, 2014 
