Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

ARTICLE 3 | INMACULADA GONZÁLEZ CABRERA 149 inability to provide the service were known before the travel took place, article 158 of the General Consumer and User Protection Act stipulates that if the travel agency has to replace the service with another one, the consumer shall be informed immediately. At this point he will be able to keep the contract with this new service provision and its possible impact on the price, or cancel it. If the insolvency situation and their inability to provide the service occurs once the trip has started, article 161.1 of the General Consumer and User Protection Act also requires the travel agency to seek solutions to continue the package travel, including the refund of the difference between the service paid and the service provided, when the condition is inferior, as well as to face the possible compensation for damages suffered by the consumer. Moreover, that precept also contemplates the obligation of the agency to return the consumer to the place of departure using a similar transport to the one that would have taken him to his destination, if the consumer decides not to continue the package travel 27 . This guarantee, as stipulated in the Directive 2015/2302, will be activated free of charge for repatriations and, if necessary, to finance any accommodation required before repatriation. The reimbursement for travel services that have not been executed shall be made without undue delay at the request of the passenger, which implies, as we have already stated, the application of this guarantee as a “non-bankruptcy privilege”, because it is not subject to the principle of the “ par condicio creditorum ” that regulates bankruptcy proceedings 28 . V. CONCLUSIONS In light of what has been argued in this article, it is clear that the European legislator aims to distinguish between the package travel and the dynamic package as two different products that require different legal regulations. The 27 It must be pointed out that the consumer’s choice not to continue the travel with the solutions given by the organizer is quite limited, and the former must claim that the solutions offered are unfeasible or have reasonable grounds to reject them. Otherwise, he will have to assume them, requesting reimbursement and the corresponding compensation, if applicable. 28 See our position on this subject in a previous work about this specific aspect in GÓMEZ LOZANO, M. M. y GONZÁLEZ CABRERA, I.: “ La garantía de la responsabilidad contractual de las agencias de viajes en concurso”, Revista de Derecho Concursal y Paraconcursal, núm. 13, 2010, pp. 341 – 348; y, en GÓMEZ LOZANO, M. M. y GONZÁLEZ CABRERA, I.: “El concurso de acreedores en el ámbito turístico”, en Repositorio de la Universidad de Almería, http://repositorio.ual.es: 8080/jspui/bitstream/10835/3522/1/EL%20CONCURSO%20DE%20ACREEDO RES%20EN%20EL%20%C3%81MBITO%20TUR%C3%8DSTICO%20-%20JUNIO%202014.pdf, june 2014, p. 1- 26.