Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

ROMANIA | ILIE DUMITRU 1135 The issuer of this guarantee instrument is therefore an insurance company; the traveller is the beneficiary of the policy and the organiser bears the costs/ /price of the insurance policy. We note that at the time of issuing the insurance policy, the insurance company does not know who the beneficiary/beneficiaries are. Indeed, even afterwards, they remain determinable persons and will not be known by the insurance company until after the insolvency of the organiser, when they will receive claims for refunds of the amounts paid by tourists to the organiser or claims for repatriation costs. If the organiser has such a guarantee instrument and after the opening of the insolvency proceedings there are passengers who, due to insolvency, cannot return to their country of residence, it is the insurance company that has the legal obligation to organize as soon as possible from the notification received from the traveller 16 , but not more than 12 hours, through a specialized operator, the repatriation of passengers; of course it is possible to provide suitable alternative tourist services in order to continue and complete the package 17 . If the traveller paid the repatriation expenses from his own funds, the insurance company has the obligation to settle the repatriation cost. 2. Letter of bank guarantee The subject of the bank guarantee letter is the guarantee by the issuing bank of the risk of non-refund by the organiser of the sums paid by the passengers, where the non-refund is determined by the non-execution of all or part of the travel services packages contract, in case of insolvency of the organiser. Legislating this guarantee instrument in this way makes us observe from the beginning that, unlike the insurance policy, which seeks to guarantee both the refunding of the sums paid by the passengers and the costs of repatriation to those who were already on vacation at the time of the insolvency of the organiser, the bank guarantee letter only guarantees “the risk of the organiser’s failing to refund the sums paid by travellers...” 18 . This allows a possible request for payment of the cost of repatriating passengers to be refused by the bank reasoned by the 16 In order to initiate the repatriation procedure, the traveller may notify the insurance company by any means of communication established in the travel package contract. 17 Appropriate alternative services must be equivalent or of better quality than those specified in the contract. In the case of a change of accommodation, suitable alternative services are to offer accommodation in a unit as close as possible to the original one in terms of comfort conditions, subject to availability. 18 See Article 4 paragraph 3 of the Order of the Minister of Tourism no. 156/2019.