Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-10-23-Speech-3-282"
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"en.20021023.6.3-282"2
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". – Mr President, I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Lisi on his report. While he was drafting it, he attended the discussions on my opinion in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and incorporated many of the points raised. Our differences are really minor, but I will return to them. As Mr Lisi said, Members pontificate here on many subjects about which they have an imperfect knowledge, but we all regard ourselves as experts on the problems of passenger travel. They dominate our working lives. So there was a warm welcome for Commissioner de Palacio's proposals to move ahead from the 1991 regulations, not just on denied boarding but on delayed and cancelled flights as well.
There is no dispute that what we call the hierarchy of remedies must apply, starting with compensation levels proportionate to the distance travelled. I think most of the airlines have responded well to this debate, with the air service passenger commitment as a gesture of intent. I would say to those maverick airlines that ignore all that – and we know where they fly to, if not always where they live – that they would be wise to heed the public mood. No frills should not mean no concern.
In our opinion, we are offered an amendment to Article 7 which called for levels of compensation to be based on specific impact assessments, so that it could not be argued that they were frivolously levied. I must say that the levels of compensation in Mr Lisi's report are well beyond what we wanted under Article 7. We wanted mandatory compensation of between EUR 300 and EUR 1 500, subject to distance and review. That has fallen to between EUR 200 and 600, but I accept that in itself is progress for the consumer. I am still concerned that this does not necessarily apply under Amendment No 31, which refers back to Article 9 and not Article 8. Perhaps the Commissioner can assure me that those amendments will actually apply.
Otherwise, Mr Lisi and his committee have advanced the consumer cause and have allowed us to move forward to a system of airline ranking. If only this applied to all airlines, all flights and all problems. Every day further horrors come to light. On a British airline, a woman had to endure an 11-hour flight next to a 23-stone woman who sat on her, not next to her, throughout the flight. She was left with serious injuries and initially offered GBP 15 compensation. You might say that the airline began with one handicapped passenger and ended with two. Our journeys should be reducing handicaps, not increasing them. I welcome this report as a step in that direction."@en1
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"Public Health and Consumer Policy"1
"draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on the Environment,"1
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