EU legislation and contractual relationship between the travel package organizer and the air carrier in case of charter flights. Liability for cancelled and delayed charter flights by Ilie Dumitru IJTTHL PRE-PRINT

EU legislation and contractual relationship between the travel package organizer and the air carrier in case of charter fights. Liability for cancelled and delayed charter fights ILIE DUMITRU, Phd. Associate Professor I. Global economic and legal contexts For more than half a century, international tourism has been in a continuous and signifcant development, becoming one of the most important sectors of the world economy before the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2019 the tourism industry contributed with more than 10% of the global GDP and was responsible for 333 million jobs. Meanwhile, international visitor spending amounted to US$ 1.8 trillion in 2019 (6.8% of total exports). If for all sectors of the national economies and the global economy, the Covid-19 pandemic meant a period of regression, for the tourism industry this regression was a dramatic one. In 2020, tourism's contribution to global GDP saw a decline of almost 50%, dropping to a contribution of only 5.5% of the previous year's global economy. This dramatic decrease, much more pronounced compared to other sectors of the economy, is explained by the specifcs of the tourism industry, which is directly dependent on travel. If other economic sectors were able to adapt to a lesser or greater extent to the new conditions (see work from home), for tourism, the blockades, conditions and travel bans of the period 2020-2021 had the efect of a real " guillotine". The solutions found worldwide to solve the problems caused by the Sars-Cov2 virus have made the start of the 2022 tourist season mark an exponential increase in demand for tourism travel. However, the previous two years of restrictions, reductions in activity, layofs, had the efect of a relative impossibility for the tourism industry to immediately/instantly return to the levels of activity prior to the pandemic period. We have in mind the layofs of personnel who served the tourism and passenger transport sectors: airlines, airports, service providers for passenger transport, etc. Even though the outbreak of the war in Ukraine risks delaying the recovery of the tourism industry by 12-24 months due to factors such as persistent infation, high energy prices and airport/airline labor shortages, according to preliminary data, the year 2022 meant a " renaissance' of the tourism sector: international travel increased by 182% in the frst three months of 2022 compared to the same period last year.

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