The Package Travel Act and the Covid19 pandemic by Jonas Thyberg

The Package Travel Act and the Covid19 pandemic Jonas Thyberg 1 1. Introduction On August 1, 2018, a new Package Travel Act (PTA) entered into force in Sweden. 2 The act replaced the previous Package Travel Act from 1994 . The new act 3 implements the Package Travel Directive of 2015 (PTD). Since the legislation only 4 had been in force for just over a year and since the act only covered packages purchased as from August 1, 2018, the PTA had not yet been applied in that many cases when Covid19 hit the world in the beginning of 2020. The outbreak of Covid19 thus put the new legislation to a test. In this contribution I will present a short overview of some of the provisions of the PTA and analyze the case law in Sweden regarding the Covid19 pandemic. In Sweden, almost all disputes between a consumer and an organizer or travel agent, is tried by the National Board for Consumer Complaints , only a very few 5 cases are settled by courts. The following analysis is therefore based on a review of cases settled by the National Board for Consumer Complaints. 2. The Package Travel legislation Member states have had national package travel acts since the early 1990’s when the frst Package Travel Directive was implemented. The legislation was adopted in 6 order to remove disincentive to consumers in one member state from buying packages in another member state and obstacles to the freedom to provide services in respect of packages and distortions of competition amongst operators established in diferent Member States, which was a result of the diferent national legislations in force at the time. Another objective of the directive was that buying package travels generally involved the expenditure of substantial amounts of money Member of the Swedish Bar Association, Partner at Konrad Advokater 1 Paketreselag (2018:1217) (Package Travel Act 2018) 2 Lag (1992:1672) om paketresor (Package Travel Act 1994) 3 Directive (EU) 2015/2302 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2015 on 4 package travel and linked travel arrangements, amending Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004 and Directive 2011/83/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council and repealing Council Directive 90/314/EEC Allmänna Reklamationsnämnden, www.arn.se 5 Council Directive of 13 June 1990 on package travel, package holidays and package tours (90/314/ 6 EEC)

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