with the right of the parties to represent or assist themselves by a third party at any stage of the procedure -Article 13.2 of the Order-. In such a case, the notification obligation to use legal professionals becomes impossible to fulfil. After the complaint is submitted, AESA will provide the airline or airport operator with an opportunity to respond, forwarding the complaint and the documentation submitted by the passenger. The respondent company will have twenty working days to make observations and propose or submit evidence it deems relevant to assert its rights -Article 15.1 of the Order-. If no observations are made, the company will be considered to have withdrawn from the process and the procedure will continue, with the passenger not needing to be heard. If the airline or airport operator makes observations, the passenger will have ten working days to submit their own arguments, documents, or propose other evidence -Article 15.2 of the Order-. It is then AESA’s responsibility to decide on the evidence proposed by the parties and, if necessary, order additional evidence to be obtained in order to resolve the dispute -Article 16.1 of the Order-. Each party must bear the costs of their proposed evidence and half of the shared or overlapping evidence, while AESA will cover the costs of evidence obtained ex officio -Article 16.2 in connection with Article 7.2.a) of the Order-101. After the admitted evidence is presented, both parties will be heard again simultaneously for a non-extendable period of ten working days if necessary to ensure equality and contradiction in the procedure -Article 17.1 of the Order-. Then, the director of AESA will resolve the complaint with a reasoned decision and determine the measures to apply -Article 17.2 of the Order-. The decision must also include information about its effectiveness and details regarding the airline’s right to challenge it, the timeframe for initiating legal action, and the passenger’s right not to appear in judicial proceedings -Article 18.3 of the Order-. The maximum deadline for adopting and notifying the decision is ninety calendar days from the date the complaint was received -Article 17.2 of the Order-. However, this can be extended for the necessary time to resolve the dispute if special complexity exists102. Additionally, since the extension cannot exceed the ninety-day period for the decision, in case of an extension, the total time for resolution would be one hundred and eighty days -Article 17.3 of the 101 We have previously referred to this issue by mentioning the free nature of the procedure. 102 Article 18.3 of the Draft Order also provided for an extension in case there were no personal or material means available, as referred to in Article 23 of Law 39/2015, of 1 October, on Common Administrative Procedure of Public Administrations. 57 THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ADR IN PASSENGERS AIR TRANSPORT
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