Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

PORTUGAL | CARLOS TORRES 1105 Fundamentally, the Directive 2015/2302, of 25 November 2015, on package travel ( a vast category beyond just the brochure ) and linked travel arrangements ( a new category ), on the one hand, strongly protects consumers by ensuring the speedy repatriation and accommodation expenses of those on vacation and, on the other hand, ensures the rapid and total reimbursement of the travel price of those who have not travelled. The current Directive is much more demanding compared to the one it replaces (the 1990 one), which reflects the multiple decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the sense of high consumer protection contained in the TFEU, expressed by the different European bodies, maxime by Parliament European. The principle of effectiveness, consecrated in Article 17 of NPTD, represents one of the most significant improvements. Essentially, “effectiveness implies that the protection should become available as soon as, as a consequence of the organiser’s liquidity problems, travel services are not being performed, will not be or will only partially be performed, or where service providers require travellers to pay for them.” (Recital 39). To be effective, the protection in the case of insolvency “should cover the foreseeable amounts of payments affected by the organiser’s insolvency and, where applicable, the foreseeable cost for repatriations. This means that the protection should be sufficient to cover all foreseeable payments made by or on behalf of travellers in respect of packages in peak season, taking into account the period between receiving such payments and the completion of the trip or holiday, as well as, where applicable, the foreseeable cost for repatriations. That will generally mean that the security has to cover a sufficiently high percentage of the organiser’s turnover in respect of packages” (Recital 40). The NPTD does not impose a specific model, and each country can choose different solutions, e.g. insurance, bank guarantees, guarantee funds (public or private) or even combine them. Therefore, there is discretion in the way insolvency protection is implemented State by State, but it becomes absolute binding in terms of its effectiveness. From the Thomas Cook’s bankruptcy, we can draw the first lessons from the different protection systems established in each country. A lesson of excellence comes from the United Kingdom, which, despite Brexit, has already announced it will retain its set of standards, an expensive system but one with more safeguards. It was the most massive postwar air operation: a few hours after the collapse, return flights were already announced,