EC Considers Lost Bag Compensation Action

Martial Tardy/Brussels martial_tardy@hotmail.com

Earlier this week, the Air Transport Users Council (AUC) of the U.K. said that the figures of lost baggage were soaring. Airlines mishandled 42 million bags worldwide in 2007, compared with 34 million in 2006 and 30 million in 2005.

In 2007, about 1.2 million bags, or about one bag for every 2,000 passengers, were irretrievably lost.

Tajani said that the EC intends "to shed some light on these alarming figures which, if they were to be confirmed, would call for a strong political intervention."

More specifically, the commission will evaluate the effectiveness of existing EU air carrier liability rules on luggage loss and damage. They are embedded in Regulation 889/2002, which aligns the EU with the Montreal Convention. The latter states that airlines are liable for lost bag, up to 1,000 Special Drawing Rights (US$1,490) for each passenger.

"Complaints to the AUC show that passengers often struggle to get reasonable redress from airlines after the event," noted the British organization. "On too many occasions, passengers are not fairly compensated for lost luggage because they do not have receipts for the items that were in their bag or because the airline is taking into account depreciation of the value of the items in the bag," added the AUC.

The European Commission said its Directorate-General for Transport and energy would approach the Airports International Council and the Association of European Airlines to muster evidence about "the scale of the phenomenon."

Photo of Heathrow Terminal 5 baggage system: British Airways