Minister Cora van Nieuwenhuizen is prepared, together with ANVR, ANWB, Consumentenbond and SGR, to investigate the possibility of an airline ticket guarantee fund in the Netherlands. This is the outcome of a discussion that the parties had about this yesterday.
During the telephone consultations, the parties once again explained the significant consequences for consumers if airlines go bankrupt. In the past 3,5 years, more than 20 airlines have gone bankrupt in Europe alone.
As a result, consumers suffer millions of euros in damage because they lose their ticket money and, if they are already at their destination, often have to book a return flight at high costs.
Following the Danish example, the 'flight ticket guarantee fund' coalition has developed a proposal whereby travelers pay a small amount of, say, € 0,25 on top of the air ticket price in favor of the guarantee fund. Customers can be paid and repatriated from this fund in the event of an airline bankruptcy.
During the consultation, the Minister indicated that he wanted to look at this further together. She prefers a European approach, but a specific Dutch solution need not stand in the way of this. Van Nieuwenhuizen has asked the parties to come up with a further elaboration of the proposal.
Work on the proposal will continue in the coming weeks. This coalition guarantee fund for airline tickets will continue discussions with the minister at the end of October.
A new piggy bank full of consumer money.
We already have two large piggy banks, ANVR and SGR, but we can add another one.
There is always someone to look at the bank balance daily for a nice fee.
The disadvantage of such a piggy bank is, of course, that the deposited money never goes back to the consumer.
When the fund has paid out, it quickly refills the piggy bank and when the last plane has landed, the consumer never sees the money in the pot again, because who should it be given to?
Yes, it is a kind of group insurance. And of course you won't see any of that. If you have a problem with that, you shouldn't take out any insurance and hope that your house never catches fire.
Super initiative!!!!!!!
As long as insurance is a choice, there is nothing wrong with it. As long as it is not yet another addition to the already long list of unavoidable additional costs, which the travel world already has such a hand in.
And which airlines should this apply to? (semi-)Dutch airlines such as KLM? All European airlines? All companies in the world? And other conditions? Departure or arrival in NL? What about a flight with Emirates, Brussels-Dubai-Bangkok?
I'm curious what will come out of this, and will follow it with great interest.
For most people, it is normal that when booking package holidays you have to pay a part down immediately, and then pay the rest shortly before the date that you start using the product.
This is completely different when booking airline tickets, where even if you book 7 or 8 months or more before the flight date, the airline immediately wants to see their money in full.
A cash payment, while the airline itself does not have to offer any guarantees, whether they are still on the market on the booked date and can still carry out this flight.
The consumer who has sometimes paid months in advance for a product that he/she did not enjoy at all, can now often enter into the months-long procedure to see, with good luck, some of his own money at all.
With a better payment system, an airline would first be allowed to charge a credit card after it has delivered the booked product.
As a guarantee that the airline can actually transfer the money, the consumer only needs to provide his credit card details when booking.