Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-10-07-Speech-3-249"
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"en.20091007.23.3-249"2
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"− Madam President, I would like to thank Commissioner Tajani for being with us this evening. This question was submitted by me on behalf of Parliament’s Committee on Transport and Tourism, as Members had become very concerned over the summer months by the collapse of SkyEurope airline, and approached me to take this initiative on their behalf.
It is worth noting that we have had 77 airline bankruptcies in the European Union since 2000 and, in the sad but likely event that some more may follow in this tough economic climate, we believe it is imperative that we use this question tonight to at least open up the debate now about how we can best protect consumers and air travellers in the European Union.
In the case of SkyEurope, it was an airline based in Slovakia. We saw passengers being left stranded at destinations, without accommodation or even a flight home. We also had the problem that many of those people were told that compensation, or even refunds, would not be possible as they had not purchased their ticket with a credit card or booked through a travel agent. These were passengers who had booked online through their own accounts, a practice that has been increasing over many years.
It is not an isolated case. We saw similar scenes in my home country, the United Kingdom, last year when Excel Airways went bankrupt, leaving over 200 000 people out of pocket, without compensation and stranded at a whole host of airports throughout Europe, with it costing them even more money to find accommodation and flights home.
Many of these people are not regular business flyers or regular flyers like ourselves, and they do not have the financial means to deal with this sort of upheaval. They are normally from those families who spend their savings on a family holiday, only to see their hard-earned money go down the drain through little fault of their own.
The status quo here is clearly not acceptable. Here in the European Union and the European Parliament, we should be proud of our record on passenger rights. We have seen the introduction of denied boarding compensation – although we know there are still issues to resolve with that. We have seen the introduction of rights to assistance and tougher laws on ticket pricing transparency, as well as tough compensation measures in the package travel directive. In fact, I believe we have covered most of the bases when it comes to consumer protection in aviation, but there is clearly a loophole here that needs to be closed.
If you book a charter with a holiday company you are covered by the package travel directive. If you book with a scheduled airline, you are covered by their system, but if you book online your seat only – the airline flight – then you are not covered. It is an anomaly. It is a loophole which Parliament, with the assistance of the Commission, is seeking to close.
In this question we have also floated the idea of establishing a reserve compensation fund, but this must not be seen as a demand on our part or by the Commission. We merely wish to open up the debate as to what mechanisms might be possible to help us best solve this problem, so the idea of the question is to start the dialogue with the Commission in the hope that we can close this loophole and find a solution to what is a serious problem, particularly for those people who find themselves victims of an airline insolvency.
I look forward to working with the Commission to try and find a solution to this problem with my committee, and to hearing the views of the other Members."@en1
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