The highest court of EU has ruled that all the European Union airlines have to pay compensation for all delayed flights until and unless the delay has been caused by circumstances that are way beyond their control. As per the ruling, travelers must be recompensed for all delays that are beyond three hours. In fact, this ruling has reaffirmed a right that was put into force nearly three years ago after a verdict in a case that involved the Air France airline.
The ruling from the EU Court of Justice was in a case that involved the German carrier Lufthansa as well as another case that involved the British Airways , easyJet, besides the TUI Travel as well as the IATA.
This ruling is applicable to all those passengers who are flying on flights being operated by the EU airlines and are either taking off or landing in any of the 27 nation group. The passengers will be entitled to a compensation of 250 to 600 euros or $A315-$A764 for any kind of delays or cancellations listed under the EU rules.
In fact, the Court of Justice ruling has only restated its previous decision regarding compensating of those passengers who are on flights that were delayed for long duration. The circumstances leading to this delay and those that are not in an airline's control have not been defined in this ruling.
This is where European Consumer Organization (BEUC) has stated that the executive arm of the European Union has to do much more in order to enforce passenger rights. In fact, the Director of BEUC, Monique Goyens has also stated that the European Commission has to consider this as well as various other similar recent judgments as benchmarks while still reviewing the regulations.
Rather than opting for dramatic reform, there needs to be pointed reform in strategic places. The main issue presently is in enforcing and implementing all the existing rules. Besides, there needs to be the ability to withstand the industry pressure in order to dilute this law.