Revision of the Package Travel Directive

Summary:

EU package travel rules protect travellers who have booked two or more travel services together – typically, a flight and a hotel room. Since the 1990s, the EU has been setting norms in this travel industry sector, to protect consumers and define obligations for package organisers. Since 2004, regulations specific to the mode of transport (such as air, rail or coach) for passenger rights have also gradually been adopted at EU level, creating a comprehensive, albeit not always coherent, framework for passenger rights. The current EU Package Travel Directive (Directive 2015/2302 – the PTD), which adapted the scope of traveller protection to market and technological developments, entered into application in July 2018. The directive has been under review since November 2023, after a limited but particularly testing period of application that saw the bankruptcy of travel agencies company Thomas Cook in 2019, and the COVID-19 pandemic immediately after. Evaluations conducted by the European Commission and the European Parliament, summarised in this briefing, show that the PTD has been partially effective in meeting its objectives (to ensure a high and uniform level of protection for travellers in the EU, and to support the proper functioning of the internal market) and the needs of consumers and traders. Ongoing reforms seek to make the PTD more resilient to large-scale disruptions by adding certain clarifications, on the definition of packages for example, and to increase the level of traveller protection with new rules on vouchers, faster refund deadlines, and a limit on prepayments.

This briefing is a part of the Implementation Appraisal series.

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