by The European Union is considering watering down the regulation that protects air passengers, a step that could affect British vacationers.
The regulation examined, generally known as EU261, was adopted in 2004. This is that European air passengers are compensated and supported if a flight with little announcement canceled or delayed by more than three hours. The compensation rates range from € 250 to 600 (£ 213-510), depending on the flight duration.
The European Parliament has discussed most of two decades about the regulation in favor of the airlines by increasing the delay equalization threshold of three to five hours. Now EU261 is back in the spotlight.
The effects on British passengers
You may think: we left the European Union in 2020. Why should this influence this in Great Britain?
After Brexit, Great Britain voluntarily passed the EU261 into the law, which means that passenger rights remained unchanged. But Great Britain now keeps the agency on this guideline. So if changes were made in Brussels, the British government would have to decide whether to accept the changes or keep UK261 in their current form.
The airlines would undoubtedly use the British government to reconcile the rules with the EU. If airlines such as Ryanair and Wizz would deal with millions of pounds thanks to a five-hour delay threshold, this would mean a large thrust for their profit and loss base and a likely reduction in ticket prices estimates that EU261 passengers cost £ 7 per ticket.
When Great Britain refused to change the compensation rules in accordance with the EU, such as British Airways, Easyjet and Jet2, compete on an uneven competitive area. Cheap airlines have previously estimated that the EU261 payments are 3 percent of annual sales, although nobody was able to disclose the exact figures due to competitive concerns.
Even if the United Kingdom would not make any changes to the EU261, Air passengers that fly with European airlines such as Ryanair or Wizz are still subject to new five-hour compensation rules if they fly from a European airport from a European airport. Whatever happens, the current conversations about snails that take place in Brussels are indeed worrying for the British vacation public.
“Modifications should improve consumer rights and do not worsen”
In view of the fact that we talk from three to five hours about a possible compensation threshold, would this really make a big difference?
It seems that way. In 2024, according to the Advocates (APRA) of the Association of Passenger Rights, more than 287 million passengers in Europe were affected by cancellations and delays. And the vast majority of it was for delays of less than five hours. Different estimates by consumer groups suggest that the optimization of the delay threshold could reduce the number of passengers that are justified for compensation by 75 and 85 percent.
Which trip? Historically, the government has warned against the pressure of the airlines to weaken passenger rights, especially against the background of a widespread flight disorder in recent years.
Ivaylo Danailov, the managing director of Skyrefund, says: “The EU261 regulation was a great success for consumers, the travel industry and European leadership. Modifications to EU261 should be made to improve the rights of consumers and not to deteriorate them.”
Could reforms be a good thing?
Some argue that reducing delays (perhaps intuitively) could be a good cause for Air passengers. Apart from the potential of lower flight prices, as indicated by Ryanair, aviation insiders say that overhaul of the compensation system could reduce the cancellations.
On this point, a spokesman for the International Air Transport Association (IATA) told The Telegraph: “We would support this change because we believe that this could actually lead to fewer cancellations in total, which would be the benefit of passengers.”
A single flight delay by a European short -haul service could cost an airline with an aircraft of 180 places £ 39,600. So it is no surprise that the sponsors are known that the airlines prevent flights from delaying top periods. Easyjet did this only last year and, between July and September, prevented 1,700 flights from Gatwick due to the challenges of air traffic control. The EU261 reform could promote a less careful approach in the future.
When it comes to cancellation in the daily department, the airlines can have a less strict delay payment threshold to use their additional two hours of wobbly space in order to solve the problem (personnel, aircraft positioning, mechanical problems) or to wait for the weather conditions to be completely canceled.
The end for you, at the moment for you
So far so many hypotheses. The result for British vacationers is as follows: The reform of EU261 was a decades of discussion (some of the people in the meeting room in Brussels may not have been born after the regulation had passed for the first time). While the subject is back on the table, there is no reason to expect immediate changes, still an indication that the United Kingdom would absorb such changes to the law.
The most recent update on the matter was via Apostolos Tzitzikostas, the European sustainable transport and tourism officers, who said at a conference of the airline airlines in Brussels: “Negotiations on the reform of passenger law continue to do so.
As a flight passenger who looks at a departure in a departure and is powerless, we can do nothing at this stage, but patiently observe and hope for a positive result – whatever that may be.
