Following up on our last week's post on the enforcement action of the UK's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) against Ryanair for failing to inform consumers of their rights, it looks like that the enforcement action was successful. Ryanair has changed its practice. It has emailed affected customers and published an announcement on its website, explaining passenger rights stemming from Regulation 261/2004 and what Ryanair is going to do about these rights.
Given that enforcement actions remain national, Ryanair seem to have done more that it was supposed to do. By its own account, it has emailed every affected customer. The published announcement is also accessible for all its customers. The UK based authority's action therefore seem to have gone beyond its territorial scope of authority, and helped every affected customer regardless of where they are domiciled, and regardless of where they were flaying to and from. Although (formal) enforcement actions for EU wide-infringements remain national, it seems that digital technology and a bit of a good will enabled a national enforcement action to have (informal) EU-wide effect closing thereby the current loophole in EU law.
Do you agree with the above analysis? Or would you consider that national authorities have scope to act beyond the borders of their Member State in situations like this where EU-wide compliance with the national enforcement action is possible? Share your views in comments below.
