No provision to approve ‘minimum air transport passenger rights’

As the city’s aviation sector reflects the difficulty of putting into practice the proposed administrative regulation of ‘minimum air transport passenger rights in case of denied boarding, flight cancellation or delay’, there are no provisions at present for this draft regulation to get approved, the Civil Aviation Authority of Macau’s president Simon Chan Weng Hong stated in a reply to legislator Kwan Tsui Hang’s enquiry.
The proposed regulation, drafted since 2008 and consulted in 2010, is a set of provisions that stipulates the minimum rights enjoyed by passengers in scenarios of denied boarding against a passenger’s will, flight cancellation or delay.
According to the draft rules, for flight delays that last for more than five hours for instance, passengers are entitled to re-imbursement of the full cost of the ticket at the price it was bought at, for the part or parts of the journey not made, and for the part or parts already made if the flight is no longer serving any purpose in relation to the passenger’s original travel plan.
However, the draft rules have not been able to enter the legislation process as the aviation sector here has voiced the difficulty of putting these provisions into practice, Chan claimed.
S.L.