concepts of which were found to be far too complicated and confusing in practice. While the current Directive only applies to the relation between traders selling packages or facilitating linked travel arrangements and travellers,6 the proposal suggests extending the scope of application to refund rights of organisers against travel service providers in case of cancellation or non-provision of a service that is part of a travel package. Accordingly, the subject matter of the Directive is suggested to include ’certain aspects of contracts between organisers of packages and service providers’. This is linked to the organiser’s right of redress under Article 22 PTD 2015 which has sparked debate as to whether it provides an independent legal basis for redress or merely refers to redress rights under existing national law. The issue is discussed in more detail further below. 1.1. Definitions An important issue is definitions, in particular the definition of the term ‘package’. In this regard, the PTD 2015 had brought a significant change by including combinations of services subject to separate contracts,7 where these separate contracts are concluded in particular situtations. The complexity of that defintition has caused confusion and ambiguity in practice. One of the situations in which separate contracts constitute a package is the purchase at a single point of sale if the respective services are selected before the traveller agrees to pay. The phrase ‘agrees to pay’ probably is to be understood as the moment when the traveller enters into a binding commitment. The Commisson proposal suggests to extend the definition to travel services • booked within 3 hours after the traveller agreed to pay for the first travel service, or, (even) • booked within 24 hours after the traveller agreed to pay for the first travel service, if, before the traveller agreed to pay for the first travel service, the trader invited the traveller to subsequently book one or more additional types of travel services. This would require the traders to keep records on the exact time at which the traveller agreed to pay. Apart from that rather bureaucratical aspect, it could even be difficult to exactly determine the exact time in the course of booking negotiations. It is also rather unclear what ‘invite’ exactly means: while in the 6 Article 2(1) PTD 2015. 7 Article 3 No 2 point (b) PTD 2015. 3 THE NEW PASSENGER MOBILITY PACKAGE – HIGHLIGHTS AND LOW POINTS
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