Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

1110 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE Consequently, Portuguese law violates the letter and spirit of the NPTD, by restricting it to a simple plurality of services when the European legislator refers to a high number of travel services, i.e. numerous travel arrangements . When a multinational or a large public institution contracts, for an annual period, the trips of all its employees, we are dealing with a managed business travel, which includes numerous travel arrangements. On the contrary, when a shoe company contracts trips for its employees and managers to the Milan fair and offers, at the end of the year, leisure trips to its five best customers, we are faced with a plurality of services. The exclusion of a significant number of professional or business trips by the Portuguese law – fulfilling the concept of plurality of services but not that of numerous travel arrangements – is not acceptable according to the Directive (Art. 4), which gives the Member States flexibility on some matters, but not on this one. Therefore, since the expression plurality of services is much narrower than the numerous travel arrangements, it should be replaced by the latter, so that a significant number of professional trips are not eliminated from the protection of the new European framework. This is precisely a matter in which European law wanted to innovate, and which does not give the Member States any possibility to diverge from its orientation. 10. THE LESSON FROM THE THOMAS COOK CASE: THE GERMAN STATE PREDOMINANTLY PROVIDES FOR THE COSTLY PROTECTION OF TRAVELLERS It was soon understood that the German system presented problems, in contrast to the quick guarantees of the ATOL (AirTravel Organisers License) implemented in the United Kingdom. Inadequate risk assessment and misinterpretation of NPTD could have caused thousands of travellers to become unprotected. According to the 12 December 2019 information, the repatriation of 140,000 German travellers may have cost 59.6 million euros or 425 euros per traveller. The most substantial amount concerns reimbursements to 525,000 customers who have not travelled, in the amount of 287.4 million euros, or 547.4 euros on average for each client. The German government, despite worrying about the deadline for transposition, neglected the NPTD rules and European jurisprudence regarding the illegal limitation of liability.