The European Parliament Transport Committee passed an extremely important amendment yesterday, effectively establishing the right of passengers to carry onboard hand baggage.

 

This is another major step forward in the fight to establish the legal rights of passengers to carry a shopping bag onboard aircraft as “a right” and not “a courtesy’ extended by any airline.

 

This latest amendment establishes the right of passengers to carry airport purchases on-board aircraft without additional cost and “in addition to hand baggage”. This was passed yesterday during a vote on the revision of the Air Passenger Rights Regulation that took place in the European Parliament’s Transport and Tourism Committee.

 

The compromise amendment adopted in Committee states that “Passengers shall be permitted to carry in the cabin, free of charge, essential personal items or belongings such as coats and handbags, and including at least one standardised bag of airport shopping in addition to the prescribed maximum cabin baggage allowance”.

 

Importantly, this vote also establishes the principle that airlines can no longer restrict or charge passengers for carrying their airport shopping on-board in addition to their normal hand baggage allowances.

 

 

REGULATION NOW FIRMLY ON THE AGENDA

ETRC, which has worked extremely hard on this issue, said that yesterday’s vote “reaffirms the practice which has been in place for the last 60 years and is still accepted by the majority of airlines today”.

 

The report will now go to vote in Plenary in February 2014 and will be subject to negotiations with the Council and European Commission.

 

Commenting on the development to TRBusiness.com from Brussels today, ETRC Secretary General Keith Spinks said that agreement on this component of the Air Passenger Rights Regulation is “very positive”, although a final decision on agreeing the entire legislative package within which the carry on luggage issue sits is not expected for at least another six months.

 

 

However, ETRC is taking great encouragement from the fact that the European Commission has now changed its previous stance from allowing airlines to regulate the issue of carry on bags themselves.

 

This has been the stance at Ryanair for several years now, although the Irish airline recently said it will now be allowing passengers to bring a small shopping bag onboard.

 

But other airlines are also looking at restricting the amount of shopping passengers may bring onboard. For example, Air Arabia and Indigo are now restricting the amount of shopping – primarily liquor on routes to India – that may be brought onboard to a weight limit of around seven kilos.

 

Meanwhile, ETRC President Sarah Branquinho (shown above) made it very clear at the recent MEADFA Conference that the association plans to see this legislation at the EU level right through to its positive conclusion – irrespective of Ryanair’s seeming declaration of peace on the issue relatively recently.

 

[TOP IMAGE: Ryanair claims that its previous shopping bag restrictions were for safety reasons…]