World airlines on Wednesday launched a legal challenge against new European Union rules that would allow boosted compensation for passengers who face delays or cancelled flights.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said in a statement that it had applied to Britain's High Court for a judicial review of the EU's measures, which are due to come in effect in February 2005.
"It is high time that EU regulators took the trouble to learn about the industry they are miss-regulating," IATA Director-General Giovanni Bisignani said. The industry body slammed the decision in January to nearly double payouts to disappointed passengers as "misguided", "irresponsible", "impractical" and "inconsistent".
While airlines accepted the need to compensate passengers who were bumped off overbooked flights, IATA - which groups 270 companies - said they could not accept to pay for problems caused by bad weather, saturated air traffic, strikes or security demands.
"With this regulation, the EU regulators have endangered the consumer interest they seek to protect," Bisignani said, warning that the new rules would increase costs on short haul routes and endanger mainly regional airlines.
The court action in Britain was aimed at obtaining a stay in the new regulations, which are due to come into force on February 17, 2005, and clearance to take the case to the European Court of Justice, IATA spokesman Kevin Dobbey told AFP.
"The real legal issue we're challenging on is that there are things that are not under our control," he said, while accepting that the overbooking issue was largely a matter for airlines to tackle.
"We're not challenging that," Dobbey added.
The industry body cited data from European air traffic control authorities indicating that about half of delays were outside the carriers' control.
IATA is also arguing in court that there were procedural flaws when EU lawmakers dealt with the issue.
Bisignani said a last ditch effort to avoid litigation failed because EU Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio did not reply to a letter asking to discuss the issue on February 25.
"Turning to the courts was our last resort but we are confident that a positive outcome will be reached," he added.
IATA also slammed recent efforts to improve air traffic control in Europe, saying they had failed to break down the largely national structure of the continent's skies which airlines blame for delays to flights inside the EU.
"If governments really want to reduce delays, rather than unfairly targeting airlines they should place their effort in making the European single sky initiative effective," Bisignani said.