A legislative wrangle lasting more than a decade has finally been settled after the European Council and the European Parliament agreed to revise rules over air passenger delay compensation and free cabin luggage.
The updated regulations will require all airlines and selling agents to be transparent about details including baggage costs from the start of the booking process, rather than advertising enticing prices that are increased later.
Carriers will be allowed to offer cheaper tickets to passengers who travel without hand luggage. And compensation for flight cancellation or delays of more than three hours, a threshold that some carriers wanted to see raised, has been revised to change the rules for longer-distance flights.
The overhaul of existing rules, which were introduced in 2004, began in 2013, and the new measures will take effect from next year.
The international travel market in 2004 was entirely different to how it is now, and those original measures have long been regarded as unfit for the modern era, particularly with regard to the growth of budget airlines, some of which have recently started to charge for cabin luggage, citing the economic consequences of the Iran war.
