impact on package travel organisers. In particular the obligation to refund the total price paid for a package cancelled due to UEC has led to liquidity problems for organisers. Many travel companies have been forced to cease its operations or even fle for bankruptcy or initiate reconstruction proceedings during the past year and a half. There are no legislations in place that obligates the providers of travel services, such as airlines, cruise companies or hotels, to refund payments in case the traveler cancel a trip due to UEC. This means that organisers often have an obligation to refund to the traveler, without getting any refunds or only receives vouchers from the service providers. Unprecedented situations like the Covid19 pandemic was not foreseen by the legislators when the PTD was adopted. In recital 40 of the PTD there is a reference to highly remote risks. It states that highly remote risks shall not be taken into account when determining the travel guarantee, since this would disproportionately afect the costs for the protection. Since the outbreak of a highly contagious disease is completely outside the control of travel companies, a similar proportionality should be introduced for the organisers responsibilities to refund in case of cancelled packages. This could be achieved for example by the introduction of legislation that stipulates that service providers have to refund in the case of cancellation due to UEC or provisions for extreme situations that obligates the organiser to refund only if and to the extent the organiser receives refunds from the service provider. Further there should be a possibility for the organiser to refund through vouchers, in those cases where the service provider refunds the organiser by vouchers instead of money. The Commission has announced that a deeper analysis of the PTD will be carried out. The result will be presented by 2022. Hopefully this analysis will include an analysis on the disproportionality between the obligations of organisers on the one hand and service providers such as airlines on the other.
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