Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-10-23-Speech-3-283"
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"en.20021023.6.3-283"2
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"Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking my colleague, Mr Lisi, for all his hard work on this report. I would like to support the comments he has made.
As a general observation, and taking issue with the Commission position, I would like to continue by saying that this report came as an unwelcome surprise, not least because, last year, a report on air passenger rights was taken through committee by Mr Collins, with Parliament overwhelmingly supporting a voluntary approach. In addition, there has been no industry consultation on this issue and no business impact assessment of value. There is no data on the projected costs to carriers; no assessment of the impact on competitiveness – between both EU and other carriers; and no information on the direct and consequential impact of this legislation.
The voluntary air passenger service commitment agreement was signed in February in Strasbourg. Virtually all the European airlines were party to it. It included references to a number of points contained in this proposal on delays, cancellations and diversions, special needs passengers, reducing the number of involuntary denied boardings and so on.
So why did Mr Collins and our committee go to the trouble of taking his report through Parliament when the Commission clearly had a legislative proposal in its back pocket? The voluntary agreement has not failed; it has not even had a chance to work. Here we are again with the Commission knocking another nail into the coffin.
The proposal is flawed in several key areas: it fails to recognise fundamental differences between scheduled and charter operations; it ignores, for example, the package travel directive covering the rights of charter passengers. In particular, it concerns proposals on cancellations and long delays, hence the inclusion of the tour operators, as supported by our committee.
The proposal also ignored the proportion of events due to failures within the monopoly providers such as ATC and airports, and the inability of airlines to obtain compensation from them.
Given that the ticket price has gone down in the last ten years, the increase in compensation levels proposed for denied boarding by the Commission is an incredible 400%. Left at those levels, this regulation would cost the scheduled carriers somewhere in the region of EUR 1.35 billion. The many regional and low-cost airlines would be more critically affected, as their margins are much smaller. In addition, none of these rules will apply to third country airlines. We in Europe will again suffer the consequences of an unlevel playing field – another example of the Commission taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Finally, under the leadership of our rapporteur, we have achieved a more sensible and realistic conclusion. I live in hope that the Commission will listen to Parliament and act accordingly.
The public quite rightly expects and deserves good customer service but this proposal is a step too far."@en1
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