Webinar Passengers Rights Transcript
On March 22nd, the European Disability Forum (EDF) organised a webinar on Passengers’ Rights to raise awareness about the rights of passengers in different transport modes covered by different European legislation, and with particular focus on the rights of passengers with disabilities. This webinar also highlighted the gaps of these EU laws which are now being revised.
This webinar was conducted by André Felix, EDF Communications Coordinator, and was supported by Raquel Riaza, Events and Administration Officer, and by other colleagues from EDF‘s office. The webinar was accessible for persons with disabilities providing live captioning and international sign language interpretation. It was recorded and it will be available on EDF’s website.
There were two speakers who are members of the EDF team: Marie Denninghaus, EDF Policy Coordinator, and Mher Hakobyan, EDF Accessibility Officer.
The webinar was structured in two parts. In the first part, Mher Hakobyan gave a thorough introduction about the current EU laws protecting the rights of passengers in four different transport modes: air, rail, bus and coach, and sea and maritime and inland waterways. He also mentioned the interpretive guidelines issued by the Commission regarding the rights of passengers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the second part, Marie Denninghaus spoke more in detail about the status of all these EU regulations and what are the positions of EDF, and the recommendations to improve these regulations. She also explained how to get involved and give some input to the Commission for the evaluation of these laws.
Finally, there was some time for questions and answers from the attendees.