The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) issued on April 19 a notice to provide guidance to airlines and U.S. travel agents regarding compliance with the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012. One of the issues addressed in the guidance letter is the requirement that, effective April 14, airlines and ...

Two cases, consoldiated on appeal, both involved personal injury claims by Canadian citizens arising from accidents they suffered during their holidays in Cuba. One of the defendants, Club Resorts Ltd., was the company that managed the two hotels where the accidents took place. Club Resorts argued that Ontario lacked jurisdiction ...

On April 19, 2012, the UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has announced its decision that British Airways (BA) and Virgin Atlantic Airways (VAA) engaged in anti-competitive practices in relation to the pricing of passenger fuel surcharges, and has imposed a fine of GBP 58.5 million on BA. VAA brought ...

The EU Commission has started a public consultation on a review of EU passenger ship safety legislation. The consultation will be open from 13/04/2012 to 5/07/2012.The first set of questions relate to the main objective, namely, to identify and address within the current Directive 2009/45/EC on rules and standards for ...

Currently there is a wide variety of public and private initiatives that aim at defining the principles and criteria to be used by European tourism stakeholders for ensuring the development and provision of quality tourism within the EU.However, these quality systems often show little consistency and coordination as they usually ...

The Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) announced that the United Nations' International Maritime Organization (IMO) agreed to the proposal of the United Kingdom, CLIA, and the Philippines to develop guidelines to address concerns related to alleged serious crimes and persons missing at sea. All 24 delegations that spoke at the ...

According to Advocate General Bot, an air carrier must compensate passengers if they have been denied boarding on account of the rescheduling of their flight following a strike at the airport which took place two days beforehand and affected a previous flight. Only denied boarding justified on grounds relating to ...

A new agreement on the transfer of EU air passengers' personal data to the US authorities was approved by the European Parliament on Thursday. The deal sets legal conditions and covers issues such as storage periods, use, data protection safeguards and administrative and judicial redress. The agreement will replace a ...

The plaintiff's spouse had booked a one week package holiday to Turkey at EUR 369 per person for the plaintiff and himself. The return flight was scheduled to depart on June 1, 2009, 16:40 hrs. One day before, the organizer changed the departure time to 05:15 hrs and thus the ...

On April 3, 2012, the European Commission has adopted the 19th update of the European list of air carriers which are for safety reasons subject to an operating ban or operational restrictions within the European Union. Conviasa, an air carrier certified in Venezuela, was added to the list due to ...

The plaintiff booked a flight connection from Frankfurt (FRA) via Sao Paulo (CGH) to Santiago de Chile (SCL) for 3.3.2010. The defendant should have operated the flight FRA-CGH whereas the flight CGH-SCL was scheduled to be operated by a different carrier. On 27.2.2010 an earthquake caused severe damages at the ...

The joined cases Nelson v. Deutsche Lufthansa (C-581/10) and TUI et al v. CAA (C-629/10), both seeking a revision of the "Sturgeon" judgement (joined cases C-402/07 and C-432/07), have been heard at the Court of the European Union in Luxembourg on March 20, 2012. In his blog, Cees van Dam, ...

The plaintiff, a painter, had made a sales exhibition of her paintings in the premises of the defendant hotel company. After the exhibition, the paintings (none of which had been sold) remained in the hotel for some time for a monthly fee to be paid by the defendant. During the ...

In his opinion in case C-12/11 - McDonagh v Ryanair, delivered on 22.03.2012, ECJ Advocate General Bot came to the conclusion that circumstances such as the closure of airspace owing to the eruption of a volcano constitute extraordinary circumstances for the purposes of Reg. 261/2004. Additionally, the EU legislation does ...

EU law requires the Member States to provide, in their legislation, a right to a single equitable remuneration for producers of phonograms published for commercial purposes, to be paid by the user of such phonograms for broadcasting or for any communication to the public. However, such equitable remuneration need not ...

The international cruise industry, whose top priority is ensuring safety of passengers and crews and which is fully committed to learning lessons from the recent tragic Concordia incident, is confident that it will continue to see steady growth in Europe, said European Cruise Council Chairman Manfredi Lefebvre d'Ovidio. Among Mr. ...

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) fined ticket agent Unister USA, also known as Flights24.com, USD 30,000 for violating the Department's rules on fare advertising and disclosure of code-share flights. An investigation by the Department's Aviation Enforcement Office found that, from at least July 2011 through October 2011, ads on ...

In the case of the former chairman of the extreme right wing German NPD ("Democratic Party of Germany"), Udo Voigt, whose wife had booked a private vacation at a wellness resort in Brandenburg but they were denied access by the hotel director on the reason that Voigt's extreme politcal views ...

New revelations produced by BBC Scotland suggest that Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Libyan jailed for life following the 1988 Lockerbie bombing may not be guilty after all. Part of the evidence against him was that he was in Malta, and was identified by a key witness there, at the time ...

The inspector general of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported that full-body X-ray scanning machines at airport security checkpoints use an "extremely low dose" of radiation which is safe for passengers. The report refers to a Johns Hopkins University assesment of 2010 which said that a passenger would ...

Article 23(1) of Regulation No 1008/2008 on common rules for the operation of air services in the Community provides that with rergard to air fares or air rates, optional price supplements shall be communicated in a clear, transparent and unambiguous way at the start of any booking process and their ...

All-in air fares, airline employees able to help stranded passengers immediately, and proper compensation when airlines go bust are the key requests set out in a resolution on air passengers' rights voted by the Transport and Tourism Committee on Tuesday.With a view to a forthcoming revision of the relevant EU ...

Rahinah Ibrahim, a Malaysian national and university professor, was legally in the United States as a Ph.D. student at Stanford University from 2001 - 2005. In early 2005, she attempted to travel to a Stanfordsponsored conference in Malaysia where she was to present her doctoral research. Alledgedly mistakenly placed on ...

The Court of the European Union has scheduled a hearing for March 20, 2012 at 09:30 in the joined cases Nelson v. Deutsche Lufthansa (C-581/10; referring court: Amtsgericht Köln, Germany) and TUI et al v. CAA (C-629/10; referring court: High Court of Justice / England & Wales, Queen's Bench Division ...

In the framework of the implementation of Action 15 of the 2010 Commission Communication on tourism COM(2010)352: "The European Charter for Sustainable and Responsible Tourism", Tourism Policy Development Unit has launched a stakeholders consultation which is open till 20 April 2012. The consultation concerns the first draft text of the ...

The Landgericht Hamburg (Regional Court, Hamburg, Germany) had asked the ECJ whether the protection of consumers pursuant to article 7 of the Package Travel Directive (PTD) also applied where the insolvency was attributable to fraudulent conduct on the part of the travel organiser. The Landgericht Hamburg must rule on the ...

On September 26, 2008, appellants purchased two round-trip airline tickets from American Airline's website. The y received an “E-Ticket Confirmation” which in the bottom line of the message stated: “A summary of Terms and Conditions of travel is available by selecting the Conditions of Carriage button below.” The referenced Conditions ...

Claims on tripadvisor.co.uk, a website providing holiday and travel consumer reviews, stated "... read reviews from real travellers ... TripAdvisor is the world's largest travel site, enabling travellers to plan and have the perfect trip. TripAdvisor offers trusted advice from real travellers and a wide variety of travel choices and ...

Malcolm Johnson filed an application with the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) against Air Canada with respect to additional fees charged for economy class seats that afford extra leg room. Mr. Johnson submitted that, due to his height, he could not sit in a “regular seat” without endangering his health due ...

Vice-President Siim Kallas, European Commissioner for Transport today was briefed by the board of the European Cruise Council about cruise ship safety. Vice President Kallas announced that the Commission strongly supports a passenger ship safety review at IMO (International Maritime Organisation) to ensure that European citizens can expect state of ...