BRUSSELS /MADRID (Reuters) – European authorities took the airline crisis to accelerate a project that seeks to control the airspace, but seemed less interested in helping airlines to pay the costs generated by the cloud of volcanic ash.
European Transport Commissioner, Siim Kallas, will present next week recommendations included a week of air chaos, which the aviation industry generated revenue losses of $ 1,700 million, despite it also saved 600 million dollars in costs as fuel.
Unify European airspace will probably be the first in the list of proposals aimed at a meeting of transport ministers of the EU will be held on May 4.
“We need a rapid and coordinated European response to such crises,” Kallas told reporters in Brussels. “Instead, we have a fragmented mosaic of national air space 27. Without a central regulator, Europe was operating with one hand behind his back,” he said.
While the ash cloud from of an Icelandic volcano remained on Europe, countries that in theory, faced similar levels of risk to their aircraft, opened or closed its airspace in different ways and at different times.
The Kallas predecessors1000had tried to join the European airspace during the last decade under a “single sky”, which would link the national airspace 27 in one by June 2012.
“No think we can afford to wait that long, “said Kallas. “I want to start working to accelerate the project of a single sky,” he said.
Previous efforts have been hampered by the reluctance to relinquish control by member states.
The law seeks to establish cross-border airspace blocks and a new regulatory framework to meet the operational requirements of the industry, passengers and regulators, as well as the needs of airlines, instead national borders.
PASSENGER RIGHTS
Airlines have reluctantly accepted the loss of revenue and increased costs during the last week, but budget airlines are less compliant with EU laws that force them to pay the hotel bills and restaurant of passengers stranded.
Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O #39; Leary, originally challenged the law on passenger rights in the European Union.
But later complied with the rule when it became clear that EU lawmakers had set several details to force airlines to provide everything a passenger might need, including “two telephone calls, telex or fax messages.
” The airlines are required by regulation meet potentially unlimited expenditure, “complained O #39; Leary, while Ryanair announced on Thursday reimburse after all.
” We will continue working to persuade (…) European Commission and European Parliament to change this regulation to make this reasonable limit on such requests for reimbursement, “he said.
The time when the law was established in 2004, Airlines warned it would have complicated consequences if the airspace was closed as was the case last week, but politicians ignored it, said the Association of European Airlines Low Cost (ELFAA, for its acronym in English).
However, Kallas rejected the call for budget airlines.
“The EU law must be respected,” he told reporters. “No rights airline passenger reduced to economic,” he said.
(Reporting by Axel Bugge; Additional reporting by Paul Harrison in Brussels, editing by Derek Caney Spanish)