EU Ruling on Flight Delays Compensation Makes US Rules Look Decidedly Inadequate.

The decision last week to mandate that any delay of 3 hours or more is the same as a flight cancellation was a victory for consumer protection and an abject lesson for those willing to understand it.

Formally on November 19th, European Court of Justice in Luxembourg decided that passengers who are forced to wait three hours or more will be compensated 600 euros, the same as if their flight had been cancelled.

There is a lot of documentation on this but there are three critical factors that we should pay attention to:

1. The scope of compensation was broadened to cover delays as well as cancellation. Just as an aside here - this may have a negative effect in that if an airline deems that a flight delay is beyond the threshold then the decision to cancel will be taken early and passengers could be left compensated but stranded - just a thought).

2. The delay time has dropped from 5 hours to three hours

3. The definition of what could be compensated - IE the reasons behind the delay was made less precise with the impact that other traditional "reasons" now become "excuses".

All this makes the US scheme even the proposed Bill of Passenger Rights look decidedly weak.

In my humble opinion the US should enact a clear set of rules along with penalties to force compliance by the airlines in the delivery of their product. At the moment the whole contract process is decidedly one-sided. The airlines can decide what they want to do to modify their part of the contract yet the consumer has little or no ability to do so. That to me is unfair.

And no - for once I am not picking on the airlines - I just fundamentally believe that the contract between two parties should be fair and equal. Currently this is not the case based on arcane rules that stem from the propeller era when the product was a lot less reliable. This is no longer the case and the travelling public in the USA deserve a clear set of rules.

And what do you think?

Cheers