A new ruling that will double the amount of compensation for European air passengers who are bumped off their flights was passed yesterday.
The European Parliament passed the new law which gives specific compensation levels for passengers denied access to their flight or whose flights are delayed for several hours or cancelled.
As reported yesterday by TravelMole, Compensation will range from 250 euros for flights of less than 1,500 km to 600 euros for flights of 3,500 km or more. The new law will apply to passengers departing from an EU airport and to those flying into the EU with a European carrier.
But charter flights are excluded from the new legislation, which is expected to hit budget carriers such as Ryanair and easyJet particularly hard. easyJet said the 250 euros figure for short-haul flights was “unreasonable”, pointing out that it is “more than 450% higher than easyJet’s lowest fare.” It had argued that compensation should be a percentage of the fare paid.
The law must now be approved by the EU’s 15 transport ministers before coming into effect next year.
