Recital (17)

It should be clarified that the termination of a package travel contract is possible where it can be reasonably expected that its performance will be significantly affected by unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances. The assessment as to whether unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances will have significant effects on the performance of the package should be based on a prediction, at the moment of the termination of the package travel contract, of the likelihood that the unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances will have significant effects on the performance of the package, which requires a case-by-case assessment. Where a traveller terminates the package travel contract, such assessment should be made from the perspective of an average traveller, who is reasonably well-informed and reasonably observant and circumspect, based on information available at the date of termination of the package travel contract in question. The effects of unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances occurring at the place of departure or occurring at the place of destination or its immediate vicinity, or affecting the journey to or from the destination, including the various places connected with the start and return of the trip in question, should be taken into account where they significantly affect the performance of travel services included in the package travel contract. The place of departure should be understood as the place where the performance of the travel services begins under the package travel contract. Circumstances affecting only the journey to the destination or the return journey should not be taken into account if that journey is not part of the package travel contract, including the transport of the passenger to the agreed place of departure. Circumstances already known to, or foreseeable by, the traveller at the time of concluding the package travel contract, and which have not significantly deteriorated since then, cannot constitute the basis for exercising the right to terminate that contract without paying a termination fee.