Navigating a nightmare

And the debate is not helped by reports such as that from US-based IdeaWorks which claims that ancillary revenues climbed 22 per last year and will reach US$82. 2 billion.

While consumer groups will jump on that number as further evidence that passengers are being ripped off, the reality is that the airlines that are biggest receivers of this revenue are the kings of the low-cost carriers – Frontier and Spirit in the US and Ryanair and Wizz in Europe.

Also, almost a third of that headline number includes the impact of frequent flyer programs which for most people are a ticket out of economy into luxury, and you can’t put a value on that.

And all of these numbers and claims totally ignore that simple fact that air travel has never been cheaper and travellers have never had so much choice.

But in the age of rights not responsibility and of course the age of fake news passengers insist on their rights and believe they are being gouged.

To help demystify those rights across a complex mishmash of legislation AirlineRatings. com, at the urging of ICAO, has added ‘passenger rights’ details for most of the 425 airlines that it rates.

On each airline’s rating page there is a tab for passenger rights, giving a clear summary of the rights and links to consumer help.

AirlineRatings. com editor Steve Creedy found that there certainly is not one-size-fits-all when it comes to passenger rights.

“A complicated patchwork of legislation globally leaves passengers protected on some routes but not others, benefiting from compulsory payments in some regions but compensated at the discretion of carriers in others. It’s a situation that can lull travellers into a false sense of security,” Creedy found.

“Domestic air passenger rights are stipulated under a carrier’s conditions of carriage, the bits that everybody says they’ve read when booking a ticket but usually haven’t. This will typically tell you what compensation you get in the case of a delayed departure, a cancellation or if an airline loses or damages your luggage,” he continued.

“It’s a legal contract between the airline and the passenger, where the airline says we will get you from to a to b and if we don’t manage to get from a to b, then these are the rights of recourse that you have,’’ says International Air Transport Association assistant director external affairs Chaitan Jain. “So that’s really the basic document which specifies what are the obligations of the airline. ’’ For international flights, air passenger rights are broadly dealt with under the 1999 Montreal Convention, the understandably shortened name for the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air.

As well as serious issues such as compensation for fatal accidents or physical injuries, the convention spells out the maximum liability by airlines for issues such as lost or damaged baggage, flight delays or cancellations and denied boarding.

“But only about 130 states of the 191 who are members of the International Civil Aviation Organization are signatories, leaving a patchwork of local regulations across some 60 countries,” says Creedy.

“Generally speaking, airlines are not required under the convention to provide compensation for extraordinary events over which they have no control, but they must provide either a ticket refund, alternative transportation to your final destination or rebooking at a later date of your choice.

“These extraordinary circumstances may include political instability, bad weather such as snow storms or the recent US hurricanes, security risks, unexpected flight safety problems and industrial action such as strikes. ” AirlineRatings. com found that Europe is the gold standard of passenger rights legislation and airlines are required to pay compensation for denied boarding, cancellation or if a flight arrives more than three hours late.

But, there are many grey areas.

“Let’s say you’re in San Francisco and you’re flying to London using a ticket purchased from American Airlines but the carrier operating the flight is British Airways. In this case, the EU regulations will kick in because the service is operated by a European carrier,” notes Creedy.

“But the opposite is also true. If you’ve purchased a ticket on British Airways and your flight is actually operated by American Airlines, the EU regulations do not apply. ” Creedy says that “it should come as no surprise that the European rules are an anathema to airlines, which argue they contradict the convention and create confusion among consumers already uncertain about their rights. ” “The airlines also worry that the EU rules will be revised to look at delays on the basis of a whole journey and measure it on arrival. ” Passenger rights are a nightmare for airlines and passengers alike and there are almost no winners in today’s society.

‘Europe is the gold standard of passenger rights legislation. ’