A new independent economic analysis has found that the latest proposed revision to EC261 — a non-paper (WK 6059/2026 INIT) by the Cypriot Presidency — would be catastrophic for passengers in practice. Here’s what the numbers show.
- Not economically enforceable
Compensation amounts are so drastically reduced under the proposal, that it would not be economically viable for passengers enforce their claims in court in 83% of cases. - Successful claims would drop by 75%
With customers unlikely to challenge a rejection, airlines are incentivised to auto-reject low value claims. The report predicts that the successful claim rate will drop from the current 60% baseline to just 15%. - 74% less compensation paid
The proposal assumes that pre-filled forms will increase successful claims to 90%, so overall compensation would drop by just 27%. The research shows that the impact on passengers is much worse than that.
What’s being proposed — and why it matters
The Cypriot Presidency’s non-paper (WK 6059/2026) attempts to resolve a long-running stalemate in EC261 reform by cutting delay compensation by up to two-thirds while introducing pre-filled claim forms. The idea is that easier filing offsets lower payouts.
But this analysis by economists Gnutzmann and Śpiewanowski show that this trade-off only holds if you ignore how enforcement actually works — and the EU’s own framework has always depended on claims agencies being able to credibly threaten litigation to keep airlines honest.
The issue is that pre-filled forms only reduce the friction of filing a claim — they do nothing to reduce the friction of enforcing one after rejection.
At €83, the compensation proposed for a short-haul delay of 3–5 hours, that enforcement threat disappears entirely.
APRA remains committed to defending air passengers rights, and is urging the EU to reject this latest proposal. As this report highlights, strong passenger rights need three things to work together: meaningful compensation, easy filing, and credible enforcement. This current proposal delivers only the second.
