Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

1038 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE that the 600 US Dollar compensation was not fair as this was to be exchanged by booking for another cruise. TheTribunal concluded that albeit the plaintiff was requesting a compensation of € 2,874.00, and sympathized with the plaintiff, yet, this sum was rather exaggerated and not legally justifiable, and furthermore, the plaintiff requested this sum not as a compensation but as “moral damages”. The Tribunal is not empowered to give such a high sum as “moral damages”. Moreover, the Tribunal noted that the plaintiff filed the case only in her name, and not together with her husband, and procedurally, it is only the plaintiff who could receive the moral damages. The Tribunal concluded that the plaintiff would be awarded € 450 as moral damages to the wife only. In another case involving moral damages with regard to package holidays is Edward & Maria Carmela Scerri versus Golden Travel Club Limited, decided by the Consumer ClaimTribunal on 28 May 2012. The plaintiffs requested the sum of € 1,248 after a trip to Corfu whereby Golden Travel did not provide them with the tours that they had booked for but with alternative tours. The plaintiffs further requested moral damages. The Tribunal awarded the plaintiffs the sum of € 250 and no moral damages, since the defendant offered them alternative tours, whereby albeit the travel agent failed to take them to a Sea Lion Show, but took them only to Corfu and instead of Mainland Greece the defendant took them to Sidari. What is interesting about the Consumer Claims Tribunal cases is that the decisions are based not only on the Package Travel Directive (either the previous one or the one in vigore ), but also on the Law of Obligations and the Law of Contracts which are part of the Civil Code. Sometimes, these claims would be based on trivial sums, and sometimes, the travellers would demand the whole of the package paid, depending on the complaint. However, as S.L. 409.19 enlists the duties of the travel agents when booking package travels, and only certain refunds, it remains up to the Tribunal or to the Court to decide on actual awards for compensation. Regulation 4 of S.L. 409.19 (Regulation 3 of the EU Directive) stipulates that the organiser/retailer is bound to provide the correct pre-contractual information. A case exemplifying this case is Edwina Bonello and Maria Therese Borg Caruana versus SMS Mondial Ltd 26 . decided by the Civil Court of Appeal, 26 There were three other similar cases based on the same facts which the Court of Appeal also confirmed.