After 13 years of legislative deadlock, EU institutions reached a compromise on 12 June that preserves passengers’ right to financial compensation after a flight delay of three hours or more. National governments had sought to raise the threshold to up to six hours, but the European Parliament prevailed, keeping payouts at €250–€600 depending on distance. A plenary vote and formal signing are scheduled for 15 June; airlines and Member States will then have twelve months to implement. The text also obliges carriers to seat minors and vulnerable travellers next to their companions without extra fees, to accept one small personal item free of charge, and to process refund or voucher claims within clearly defined deadlines. Spain’s consumer-affairs ministry welcomed the agreement, noting that Spanish courts handled nearly 300,000 compensation claims last year—second only to Germany in volume—and saying the new rules should cut litigation by making carriers’ obligations clearer. For corporate mobility programmes, the decision locks in predictable cost recovery for delayed staff and maintains leverage when negotiating airline service-level agreements. Travel-management companies operating in Spain say they will update booking tools and policy templates to reflect the codified rights, especially the new duty on carriers to offer discounts if a passenger opts out of cabin baggage. Airlines contend that the unchanged threshold could see ticket prices rise as they absorb disruption costs, particularly on dense leisure routes such as Madrid–Palma or Barcelona–Berlin where low-cost rivals compete on thin margins. However, analysts at CaixaBank Research estimate the impact on average fares in Spain at “less than €2 per sector” once spread across load factors. Passengers starting or ending journeys in non-EU hubs—Dubai, Doha, New York—remain covered when the operating carrier is EU-licensed, a point mobility managers should remember when arranging long-haul routings for executives relocating to Spain.
Source: El País
