Airline passengers will gain new rights to claim compensation for cancelled flights under a European plan to close loopholes in the law.

The European Commission believes that airlines are wilfully misinterpreting the rules to reject thousands of legitimate claims each month.

An EU regulation introduced in February 2005 requires airlines to pay up to €600 (£408) in compensation to each passenger for cancelling a flight. Passengers are also entitled either to be reimbursed for their tickets or transferred to another flight. But airlines have taken advantage of a clause in the regulation that relieves them of the obligation to pay compensation if there are “unexpected flight safety shortcomings”.

The clause was inserted to cover events beyond the airlines’ control, such as problems with runways or air traffic control. The clause adds that it covers cases only where an event has been caused by extraordinary circumstances that could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken.

But airlines are routinely using it to reject claims for cancellations caused by minor technical problems with aircraft that could have been prevented by better maintenance.

The commission recently completed its research on the problems with the regulation and is expected to recommend this summer that the rules be tightened.

EasyJet said it was unfair to expect it to pay such compensation when the average passenger paid only £90 for a return ticket. A British Airways spokesman said: “If the regulation changes we would abide by it.”

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