Lowering compensation to symbolic quantities strips the regulation of its main objective: client safety and accountability. An impartial financial evaluation by Dr. Hinnerk Gnutzmann and Dr. Piotr Śpiewanowski confirms the dimensions of this danger. Their research concludes that beneath these proposed modifications, whole compensation really paid to passengers would fall by 74 p.c, whereas roughly 83 p.c of delay claims would grow to be successfully unenforceable.
EC261 is efficient as a result of it creates a transparent monetary incentive for airways to attenuate avoidable disruption and resolve claims correctly.
This isn’t a theoretical concern. Airways already reject 52 p.c of legitimate preliminary claims, forcing many passengers to depend on authorized representatives or client our bodies to implement their rights. If compensation ranges fall to €83, pursuing claims would grow to be economically unviable at scale, successfully shutting passengers out of significant enforcement. Rights might stay on paper, however entry to justice would steadily disappear in observe.
However the penalties would prolong far past compensation itself. EC261 is efficient as a result of it creates a transparent monetary incentive for airways to attenuate avoidable disruption and resolve claims correctly. Weakening that deterrent would cut back strain on airways to take care of punctuality, whereas rising the motivation to reject legitimate claims within the expectation that few passengers will be capable to problem these selections.
The phantasm of automated kinds
To offset these reductions, the Council has positioned important political religion in automated compensation kinds, framing them as a technological answer that may simplify declare filings. Whereas digitization is a welcome step, automated paperwork can’t substitute substantive authorized rights. Even when these kinds might make a optimistic influence, they lose all efficacy if compensation quantities lower. Simplifying the submitting course of is solely meaningless if the underlying declare is financially unviable to pursue; if compensation is lower to symbolic ranges, significant enforcement turns into inconceivable, rendering any new paperwork system ineffective.
Preserving a worldwide commonplace
