Ms Ethna Brogan:

I thank the Chairman for inviting us to attend. Together with my colleagues from the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, Mr. Austin Cunningham and Ms Niamh O'Brien, I hope to set out for the information of members of the joint committee the main elements of the legislative proposal - the reference is COM (2013) 130 - and the implications it may have in an Irish context. The proposal was published by the European Commission on 13 March. It is one of several new legislative proposals in the aviation sphere that will be presented by Commissioner Kallas to EU Transport Ministers at the next meeting of the Transport Council on 10 June which will be chaired by the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Leo Varadkar, in his capacity as President of the Council during the Irish Presidency of the European Union. It is for a new regulation of the European Parliament and the European Council to amend two existing EU regulations.

It is for a new regulation of the European Parliament and the European Council to amend two existing EU regulations: first, Regulation 261/2004, a well-known regulation which established common rules on compensation and assistance to passengers in the event of denial of boarding and cancellation or long delay of flights; and second, Regulation 2027/1997, on the liability of air carriers in respect of the carriage of passengers and their baggage by air.

The main objective of Regulation 261/2004 was to combat practices that had arisen in some parts of the airline industry, including overbooking of passengers to ensure maximum load capacity. The regulation established a suite of rights for passengers when travelling by air, including the right to care and assistance and even to compensation in certain circumstances when they were denied boarding or their flights were cancelled or delayed. While it has been in effect in European law since February 2005, the importance of the regulation came into particularly sharp focus during the volcanic ash crisis in 2010, when hundreds of thousands of passengers were stranded following the closure of most European airspace for number of days due to a volcanic eruption in Iceland. Under the regulation, each member state was required to appoint a body which would have responsibility at national level for enforcing the provisions of the regulation. In Ireland, the Commission for Aviation Regulation has been given that function. The main objective of the new proposal published by the Commission is to clarify some of the legal grey areas which have become evident in the implementation of Regulation 261/2004 and to take account of developments in case law relating to that regulation. Consumers and airlines alike have had difficulties in interpreting some aspects of regulation 261, which has resulted in number of cases coming before the European courts in recent years. The new proposal aims to provide clarity on issues such as passengers' right to information on delayed or cancelled flights, their right to assistance or compensation for long delays and for tarmac delays, their right to rerouting within specific timeframes and their rights in the context of missed connecting flights.

Under Regulation 261/2004, as adopted, air carriers were not required to pay compensation to passengers if they could prove that cancellations were caused by what were termed "extraordinary circumstances." However, the term was not defined in the regulation and this has given rise to a number of disputes between airlines and passengers over the years. The new proposal addresses this and defines the term in line with the decision of the European Court as being "Circumstances which are not inherent in the normal exercise of the activity of the air carrier and beyond its actual control." The proposal goes so far as to include a non-exhaustive list of such circumstances. For example, strikes caused by air traffic controllers or natural disasters are now clearly covered as extraordinary circumstances, and air carriers will not be required to pay compensation to passengers in those circumstances.

The proposal also introduces a number of new passenger rights which are not currently covered under the regulation. These include the right for passengers to have misspelled names corrected free of charge by airlines up to 48 hours before departure, the right to carry small musical instruments as cabin baggage and the right to more transparent information on cabin and checked baggage.

The proposal also aims to strengthen the oversight of air carriers by the enforcement bodies that have been set up at national level and by the European authorities. It reinforces the co-ordination and exchange of information among the national enforcement bodies throughout the European Union and will oblige airlines to put in place clear complaint-handling procedures and access to dispute resolution mechanisms where disputes arise. Finally, the new proposal aims to address the disproportionate financial burden that Regulation 261/2004 created in certain circumstances. For example, it did not place any limits on the assistance that airlines were required to offer to passengers, even in circumstances in which the delay or cancellation was beyond the airline's control. The current proposal aims to share out the economic burden among airlines, airports and other stakeholders.

As I outlined, the proposal will be presented to transport Ministers at the next Council meeting on 10 June, but this is just an initial presentation by the Commissioner on the proposal. Substantive discussions are not likely to get under way in the Council until July under the Lithuanian Presidency. Following publication of the proposal on 18 March, the Department wrote to a large number of stakeholders inviting them to submit their views on the proposal. We have received a number of interesting submissions and are examining them in detail. Clearly, we are also interested in hearing the views of the committee today in order that we can adopt a fully informed position in the negotiations on the proposal when they get under way in the Council in the coming months.