Impact Assessment on the Revision of the Air Services Regulation (Regulation 1008/2008) – eu travel tech position paper

eu travel tech welcomes the Commission’s call for evidence for an impact assessment regarding the upcoming revision of Regulation 1008/2008 on Air Services. This revision is an historic opportunity to ensure full price comparability, reinforce passenger rights and advance the Green Deal by closing key gaps that have emerged since 2008. We therefore recommend:

1. Non-discriminatory access to fares
• Ban airlines from withholding fares, fees or taxes from indirect distribution channels or applying surcharges on them.
• Insert an explicit ban on discrimination based on booking channel so consumers can access all fares regardless of distribution channel.
• Require airlines to provide identical fare-and-tax data via at least one open, standardised API on FRAND terms, enabling every distributor to show the same core price.

2. Licence conditional on refund compliance
• Make airlines’ operating licences conditional on full compliance with Regulation 261/2004, including seven-day cash refunds and a permanently interoperable refund interface covering indirect and direct sales.
• Add proportionate financial resilience buffers and an EU-level monitoring framework.

3. Modern price transparency
• Define an EU-wide list of “unavoidable and foreseeable” elements always included in the initial fare: cabin hand-luggage, seating of minors with adults, VAT on domestic flights, online check-in and payment method fees.
• Redefine “final price” as “price of the minimum flight offering” and keep display rules outcome-based to allow mobile-friendly design.
• Oblige airlines to supply full, uniform price breakdown datasets (distinguishing refundable from non-refundable fees) to intermediaries, while limiting intermediaries’ liability to only the data they receive.

4. Transparent optional services
• Introduce a reviewable Annex listing “core optional price supplements” (e.g. checked baggage, seat selection, ticket-change, priority boarding, payment fees).
• Require airlines to publish prices for these optional prices through the same open API so consumers can compare like-for-like across channels.

5. Sustainability data for informed choice
• Introduce a harmonised, route-based CO₂ metric aligned with CountEmissions EU and make emissions data available free of charge to intermediaries and accredited calculators, allowing greener flights to be visible wherever consumers shop.

6. Mandatory airline insolvency protection
• Oblige airlines to hold insolvency guarantees or insurance, modelled on the Package Travel Directive, to cover refunds and, if needed, repatriation. Red flag: between 2011-2019, 87 airline failures affected 5.6 million passengers, who incurred on average €431 each in costs, 83 % of which went unrecovered.

A future-proof Air Services Regulation that enforces fair access to content, protects passengers against refund failures and bankruptcies, and delivers trustworthy price and emissions information across all sales channels will foster genuine competition and accelerate decarbonisation in EU aviation.