ERA urges MEPs to protect regional connectivity in EU261 vote

 Montserrat Barriga, ERA Director General, said: “Regional airlines are lifelines for Europe. The passengers in the regions they serve are at the heart of their business purpose. They connect remote and island communities to essential services, jobs and healthcare, often when there’s no other way to travel. The proposal on the table doesn’t reflect that reality. Increasing the compensation rate to €300 while keeping the three-hour delay rule is completely out of scale for air regional services, sometimes several times the price of the ticket. With such a short timeframe, it is often almost impossible for regional airlines who may have limited access to maintenance facilities, to fix operational issues.''

Jesper Rungholm, CEO of DAT Group and President of ERA, added: “Passenger rights are important, but the current regulation doesn’t always reflect the realities of serving small island communities like those in Denmark. At DAT, we fly to places where bad weather or limited airport facilities can lead to unavoidable long delays. As a regional airline, we play a vital role in keeping communities connected, often being the only link for people who rely on us for essential travel. Our priority is always to get passengers where they need to go, especially in emergencies. We provide meals and accommodation when needed, but the focus should remain on helping passengers reach their destination safely, not on penalising airlines that keep vital regional routes alive.”  

David Curmi, Executive Chairman KM Malta Airlines, said: “The revision of EU261 should be an opportunity to ease the heavy burden on airlines that work hard to keep passengers moving, not to make it harder for them. For island nations like Malta, air travel is a necessity. When disruptions occur, our priority is always to get passengers to their destination, even if it means extra cost or effort to keep flights operating. The current three-hour delay rule does the opposite, it penalises airlines that do everything possible to avoid cancellations, when in fact, passengers are better served by a delayed flight than no flight at all.” 

Moreover, the limitation of the possibility to invoke extraordinary circumstances for only one subsequent flight in a rotation, along with other new obligations, including automatic reimbursement, restrictions on the no-show policy and the potential self-rerouting of up to 400% of ticket value,  while also limiting the possibility for the carrier to reroute the passenger from an alternative airports, further exacerbate the economic and administrative pressure on regional airlines already stretched to maintain services. Ultimately this could force them to reduce services or close marginal routes altogether. 

Passenger rights must be protected but so must regional airlines who offer lifelines to the communities they serve.

Tags: David Curmi,  KM Malta Airlines, Jesper Rungholm, ERA, Montserrat Barriga