Labour MEP Alfred Sant has submitted a parliamentary question asking the European Commission about action taken to safeguard the contractual rights of passengers in view of disproportionately delayed flight ticket reimbursements.

Following mass flight cancellations due to COVID-19, some airlines were making it practically impossible for passengers to get their money back. Instead, vouchers were being offered, obliging customers to purchase tickets with the same flight company within a set period.

Sant also asked the European Commission to indicate if there were any ongoing investigations on the matter and whether it was ready to make the results of such investigations public.

Sant quoted an EU regulation which stated that, in the case of flight cancellations, passengers should be offered the choice between reimbursement of the full cost of the ticket at the price at which it was bought or re-routing to their final destination.

The EU is the only area in the world where citizens are protected by a full set of passenger rights whether they travel by air, rail, ship, bus or coach. 

In its efforts to mitigate the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Commission published a set of guidelines last month with a view to ensuring EU passenger rights are applied in a coherent manner across the EU.