Who Pays Now ?

Following the passing of a new law guaranteeing air passengers more compensation for cancellations, the Blogsphere has been alive with condemnations. Weighing in on the side of the new law is the Blogsphere’s very own commissioner, who failed to notice that many passengers were against the idea. In light of the arguments, this piece of news struck me as very funny.

Air France ground staff at Paris's Orly airport voted to resume their strike.

In their rush to blame private business for all the evils in the world, our leaders ignored the real reason that most delays occur. Trade Unions. The Spanish Air Traffic Controllers must be responsible for more delay hours than the entire low fare sector. They seem to go on strike every holiday season. Apparently the reasons for delays are as follows:

• 20% - Air traffic control
• 5% - Passenger (planes delayed for late arriving passengers; sick passengers)
• 5% Weather
• 10% - Aircraft technical
• 5% - Operations (e.g. strikes by baggage handlers)
• 50% - Reactionary. This is the biggest single category and it is largely accounted for by planes which are delayed as a result of delays earlier in the day: for example a Luton - Ibiza flight which suffers air traffic control delays on its first flight of the day will be late on the return flight to Luton and any subsequent flights through its working day.

So I overestimated the effect of strikes, but you can see that Airlines are almost irrelevant as a cause. In view of these events, is it not only fair that passengers can claim compensation from unions when they strike and from other passengers when they are late?