EU countries have agreed to increase the amount of time air passengers are delayed before they can qualify for financial compensation. The EU has also agreed to increase the amount for those delayed on short-haul flights from €250 to €300, but plan to reduce compensation for long-haul flights from €600 to €500.

Under the new plans, air passengers flying on short-haul destinations would have to be delayed by four hours or more before they could claim compensation. For long-haul flights delays would have to be six or more hours. The current EU rules dictate that passengers can ask for compensation if their flight is delayed for more than three hours.

EU Air Passenger Rights

The revision of the EU’s air passenger rights was initially proposed in 2013 by the European Commission. It has taken 12 years of negotiations for member states to reach an agreement on changes to the timeframe for compensation.

The European Consumer Organisation, the BEUC, said the plan would deprive “the majority of passengers from their compensation rights”, as most delays are between two and four hours.

The trade body Airlines for Europe (A4E), which represents companies such as Ryanair, Air France-KLM and Lufthansa, also condemned the plan because it wanted delay times to be even longer before compensation payments kick in.

Ourania Georgoutsakou, the A4E managing director, said: “Europe has been waiting for transparent and workable passenger rights for 12 years and member states have fallen at the final hurdle to deliver. Rather than providing delay thresholds of five and nine hours that would save up to 70% of rescuable cancelled flights, member states have diluted the European Commission’s original proposal and introduced even more complexity.”

Airlines argued that mandating a longer delay threshold would give them a fighting chance to minimise delays and avoid flight cancellations, the industry body Airlines for Europe (A4E) said in a letter to the German minister for transport this week.

Improving Service for Air Passengers

Philippe Tabarot, the French transport minister, said he was pleased with the agreement. He wrote on X: “The text could have been more ambitious, but it is an important step towards improving the quality of service offered to air passengers.”

The European Commission originally proposed extending the time to five hours for short-haul flights and nine for long-haul. Politicians, however, have veered away from delivering the politically unpalatable message that passengers will have to lose out. Germany was one of the strongest opponents of increasing the limits, along with Spain.

In a statement on Thursday, German lawmakers from the European People’s Party, Europe’s largest political group, said that “decreasing the rights to compensation for air passengers would be a step in the wrong direction. Reimbursement after a three-hour delay has been standard for many years and should remain so”.

“No politician wants to say more than four hours,” one senior EU diplomat said.

Right to be Rerouted

The EU agreement also includes a “right to be rerouted” when there are long delays, automating forms for compensation and stronger rights for passengers with disabilities or reduced mobility.

The EU member states will have to negotiate with the European parliament before the revisions become final law.

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