Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

PORTUGAL | CARLOS TORRES 1107 will have to support the expenses of the tourists’ repatriation and the reimbursement of those who did not travelled. As previously mentioned, this is a questionable option by the Portuguese legislator (very imperfectly expressed in Art. 29/2 LAVT), strongly induced by the Portuguese association of travel agencies, following the agreement with the most representative consumer association. However, the NPTD (Art. 13/1) allows retailers not to be held responsible for the performance of the package, as is the case in Germany or the United Kingdom. This is a system that benefits large organisations, as the retailers are the first ones called to solve the problems arising from the operators’ collapse. Retailers will be able to tackle it if the problem is small, however, a more significant issue will lead to the retailers’ collapse as well, generating the typical domino effect. In addition to this inequity, that is, dragging a significant number of small companies into bankruptcy, thus creating very negative consequences on employment, the Portuguese system does not attend to the tourists who are at the destination. The traveller will have to find, on his own, a solution for the payment of the hotel expenses (it comes to mind a recentThomas Cook situation, in which the hotelier demanded 8,000 £ from each customer), airport transfers and return airfare. The expenses are then presented within a supplementary period of 30 days. As such, when travellers purchase a fly-drive or flight and hotel, they should benefit from a protection system in case of the airline’s insolvency. The Portuguese legislator ignores this European imposition, as well as the profound changes brought about by the Internet in the way travels are purchased. Even considering bankruptcies of much lower amounts than Thomas Cook, for instance, 30 million euros from a single operator in peak season, the Portuguese public guarantee fund does not cover even a third of that amount. Moreover, the Portuguese system is a real paradise for the socalled “toxic operators”, namely from the other Member States. With a single 2500 € contribution, they can sell packages in the global amount of tens or even hundreds of millions of euros. It is possible to generate 50 or 100 million euros of repatriations and refunds to be borne by the solidarity guarantee fund, which the fund indeed does not have. It sounds like fiction, but this is the worrying reality we’re faced with. The public guarantee fund is insufficient, not even covering 1 / 5 of the 50 million euros expenses resulting from the failure of an operator in peak season. The retailers become an infantry of sorts, the cannon fodder to this absurd solution,