ERA STATEMENT ON TODAY’S EC PASSENGER RIGHTS LEAFLET DISTRIBUTION

17/02/2005

Outrageously and deliberately misleading and based on a poor understanding of the industry and its own legislation, the European Commission's actions in promoting the new passenger rights legislation that comes into force today is sure to lead to conflicts at airports.

The new Transport Commissioner is in the embarrassing position of having to promote the incompetence of his predecessor, using a misleading and incorrect leaflet that his own staff clearly do not understand and should have withdrawn.

During the next few weeks, aggressive confrontations at airports across Europe caused by this wrong information erroneously increasing passenger expectations will be the responsibility of the European Commission alone.