Low-cost airlines - no frills and no leg to stand on

Legislation is failing to protect disgruntled air travellers across Europe, writes Laura Slattery.

Flying somewhere nice this weekend? A credit card, a sleeping bag and a masochistic streak could all prove sensible additions to your luggage, judging from a report on air passenger rights published recently by the European Consumer Centre Network (ECC Net).

According to the report, European and international airline legislation is failing air travellers, with national enforcement bodies proving either unwilling or unable to challenge airlines that often simply don't respond to customers' complaints.

Out of more than 1,500 complaints recorded by ECC Net last year, one in three was not resolved even though the aggrieved passengers had a valid claim for compensation.

Several airlines invited to the launch of the report in Dublin last week failed to show up, in keeping with the usual contemptuous attitude that some have shown to customers who have the temerity to expect to wind up in the right airport on the right day.

The report is littered with the kind of "my travel hell" stories that almost everyone has either experienced or has heard someone fume about at some point since the low-cost, no-frills airline revolution took off more than a decade ago.

Many involve passengers left stranded at an overseas airport, their flight cancelled without explanation and their bags dumped.

With no alternative flights for several days, they are forced to make their own way home, incurring the cost of additional air fares, taxis, car hire, meals and frazzled phone calls - some of them unsuccessful attempts to get through to the airline's own customer service line.

So a €1 low fare rapidly spirals into the kind of nightmare that costs several hundred euro and a night's sleep.

The ECC Net report, which was written by ECC Ireland director Tina Leonard and ECC UK director Ruth Bamford, monitors the impact of new EU regulations that give consumers the right to refreshments and accommodation in the case of delayed flights and compensation in the event of cancellations and denied boarding.

The regulations, which were introduced in February 2005, were challenged unsuccessfully by Ryanair and an assortment of other low-cost carriers known as the European Low Fares Airline Association (Elfaa) in the European Court of Justice.

Before they lost the case, the airlines were distributing flyers to passengers telling them that they didn't agree with the regulations, but now they are obliged to comply, according to Leonard.

Unfortunately for consumers, the airlines have found a get-out clause. The rights promised under the EU regulations do not apply in "exceptional circumstances" such as bad weather, security risks, strikes and political instability and the report authors say they suspect that this defence is being used as a "get out of jail free" card by airlines to avoid paying compensation.

As Bamford notes, passengers would have to have a degree in meteorology or a seat in air traffic control to challenge an airline's decision to cancel a flight because of bad weather.

"It is weighted against the consumer," she says. In at least 9 per cent of the complaints handled by the ECC Net last year, the airline claimed "exceptional circumstances" as an excuse not to pay.

Some airlines do not put any address or e-mail facility for complaints on their websites but force consumers to ring premium-rate phone lines. So rather than coughing up the compensation they owe, Bamford says, they are actually making more money out of ill-treated passengers.

Both the EU regulations and the international Montreal Convention, which gives passengers rights to compensation in relation to lost or damaged luggage, are poorly written and confusing pieces of legislation, according to Leonard.

The ECC Net's report makes 23 recommendations, including extending the time limits for luggage complaints and bringing them within the scope of the EU regulations, defining delays of more than 24 hours as cancellations and imposing penalties on airlines that do not provide refreshments when required.

The ECC wants a standard amount of compensation to be agreed with insurance companies for lost luggage. Some airlines are actually requiring customers to produce receipts for everything in their bags before they will pay.

"You can be in disputes for some considerable time over the value of your luggage," Bamford says.

It has also called for all airlines to review their policies on baggage claims following a recent ruling by the British Office of Fair Trading, in which it ordered Ryanair to remove an exclusion of liability for damage to sporting equipment, pushchairs, medical equipment and musical instruments. Until that instruction, these items were carried in the hold of Ryanair aircraft at customers' own risk.

The ECC Net hopes this will set a precedent for other airlines and for the rulings of other enforcement bodies, which to date have been inconsistent.

Its report is politely scathing about the effectiveness of the national enforcement bodies, which seem to close the files on a complaint all too easily.

The problem is exasperated for cross-border consumers - surely the majority of airline passengers, the report notes. Under the EU regulations, the national enforcement body - in the Republic's case, the Commission for Aviation Regulation - is responsible when the take-off occurs on its soil, yet they have no influence on airlines based in another EU country.

"As a result, passengers are effectively being disenfranchised," the report notes.

Figures obtained from the Commission for Aviation Regulation earlier this week show that it received 150 complaints from consumers about cancelled and delayed flights and cases of denied boarding between January and September 2006.

The commission, however, does not know how many of these complaints have been settled or if the consumer received any redress. This is a matter for the passenger and the airline to resolve, according to a spokesman.

European consumer centres in EU member states can intervene on behalf of passengers and have been successful in doing so, but they have no powers to force the airlines to comply with the law or pay compensation claims.

Taking legal action is almost always a practical impossibility, although the ECC in Dublin is investigating the idea of taking action in the Irish small claims court against foreign airlines who have registered offices in the Republic.

Knowing it is unlikely that the cross-border consumer will take action, airlines are adopting "a cynical approach" to handling complaints from passengers based overseas. In other words, they are point-blank ignoring them.

New regulations requiring national consumer bodies to co-operate with each other on behalf of cross-border consumers come into effect on December 29th, Jesus Orus Baguena of the European Commission's department of health and consumer affairs says.

"The ping-pong game of 'it is not my responsibility, it's yours' will have to stop by definition."

The commission is due to publish a report on the air passenger regulations next spring but in the meantime, borrowing a metaphor from another method of transport, the EU regulations are "a shiny new car with no engine", according to Fine Gael MEP Mairéad McGuinness. She says it is another example of how the single market is failing consumers.

It is only those with the time and the energy to turn their quest for compensation into a full-time personal crusade who actually get anywhere.

"Many people have a bad experience and just put up with that bad experience," she says.