The Legal Impacts of COVID-19 in the Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Industry

COVID-19 and Air Transport: Italian Legislative Provisions Alessandra Corrado 1. Overview of the Measures to Minimise the Spread of the Contagion Adopted by Italian Government; 2. Air Transport Contracts and the Italian Provisions; 2.1 The voucher as a means of reimbursement; 3. EU Commission Guidelines; 3.1. The amendment contained in paragraph 4, Art. 88 bis : possible infringement of Regulation No. 261/2004. 1. Overview of the Measures to Minimise the Spread of the Contagion Adopted by the Italian Government The spread of COVID-19 virus in the Western world and Italy, in particular, having been the first European Country to be hit by the incredibly rapid spread of this virus, led the Italian Government to adopt an extensive series of Legislative Decrees as to implement some measures in order to both minimise the risk of infection and economically cope with the consequences of confinement and containment measures adopted. To better understand the provisions and the issues related to air transport contracts, it is important to briefly describe the main measures taken by the Italian legislator during the past few months. At the end of January, the World Health Organisation (WHO) realised that COVID-19 was to be treated as a global threat and thus declared the state of emergency at an international level. Following such declaration, on 31 January, the Italian Council of Ministers also declared the national state of emergency on the Italian territory for a period of 6 months, and several provisions followed therefrom, in order to lessen the risk of contagion. On 23 February 2020, by virtue of Decree-Law No. 6, urgent measures for the containment of the epidemiological emergency from COVID-19 were adopted 1 . This Decree was then converted into Law No. 13, dated 5 March 2020, a first provision that enacted some measures and restrictions limited to a portion of the national territory subject to the presence of at least one coronavirus patient. After this first legislative provision, several others followed due to the spread of the pandemic, which was initially limited to a few northern regions but which soon affected the whole country 2 . As mentioned, the measures taken, at first, were addressed to a small portion of Northern Italy; these were quarantine, the restriction to travel and to exit the region, the creation of the so-called “red zones” where the infection was at that time more aggressive. However, after a few days, given the particularly aggressive nature of such infection, we faced a situation where the whole country had to 1 In the Italian system, a Decree-Law is a provisional act having the force of law, adopted in extraordinary cases of necessity and urgency by the Government. A Decree-Law must be “converted” into an ordinary Law within 60 days from its publication or, otherwise, it loses its effects. 2 The Prime Ministerial Decrees are dated 23 February, 1 March, 8 March, 9 March; 11 March, 22 March, 1 April, 10 April and 26 April; all of which implemented and extended containment measures and restrictions for growing number of activities and greater areas.