Getting to a million signatures is most European citizen initiatives’ (ECI) biggest goal. But for Save your right, save your flight, an ECI is a tool for bringing the citizens’ voice into heated political debates.
“The whole idea of starting this ECI was to utilise this powerful mechanism of citizen participation in advancing a cause we believe in, which is passenger rights,” says Marian Fila, one of the organisers. “It’s a fantastic tool for someone who doesn’t have intrinsic capital to be part of a discussion.”
The group of organisers are recent graduates of College of Europe in Natolin, Poland, where they took a class on citizen lobbying and learnt about ECIs. After the class ended, with the help of their professor, they decided to run their own initiative, trialling how to use the tool for advocacy at the EU level.
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The ECI started signature collection in August ’25 and by mid-December had more than 4,300 signatures. It’s a slow start, but for the organisers, getting a million signatures is a secondary task, as their approach differs from the usual ECI goal to get the European Commission to act on an issue.
Save Your Flight is campaigning against a proposal that EU policymakers are currently considering, which would limit some of EU travellers’ current rights to compensation in the event of delayed flights. The current EU rules require that passengers be eligible for compensation for flights delayed by at least 3 hours. However, the proposed update extends the timeframe to at least 4 hours and slashes compensation rates for medium and long-haul flights by €100, among other measures.
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If policymakers agree on a change before the ECI signature collection ends in August 2026, on paper, it would make gathering 1 million signatures for this ECI pointless. But running the ECI now helps Marian and his fellow organisers to take part in the debate over the proposal to loosen regulations. They have, for example, held meetings with the European Parliament’s rapporteur for the file, Andrey Novakov, and contributed to policy discussions on LinkedIn, lobbying both the public and policymakers to protect passengers’ rights.
“We’ve been focusing more on the lobbying side rather than signature collection, partially because we don’t have the financial means to put a lot of resources into advertising and partially because the debate is happening now,” explains Marian.
The timeline for the policy file is uncertain, as negotiations are in deadlock. The last round of talks on the proposal between EU member states and the European Parliament – a so-called trilogue – happened in early December. But the longer there is no agreement, the more time the organisers have to campaign for their cause.
And if they do end up losing before the ECI collection period is over, Marian believes the platform they have created for campaigning will become even more important for organising further action and fueling debate. “Either this debate goes our way, and those rights are preserved, or if that’s not the case, then this ECI will become much more important,” says Marian.
A call for volunteers
On social media, where most ECIs engage with potential supporters, Save Your Flight had a slow start. LinkedIn has been the most useful platform for engaging in political debates, including through discussions with those campaigning against the cause, challenging their narrative.
Tiktok, meanwhile, has given the organisers the biggest access to citizens who have not previously engaged with the issue. But Marian says the platform has been too capricious, and the fresh eyes do not appear to readily translate into signatures.
Another avenue the organisers are pursuing on social media is collaboration with influencers, politicians and stakeholders. But they are still waiting to go viral. “It hasn't been the main engine of growth yet,” says Marian. “Most of our growth is more organic than social media-driven.”
Plus, keeping up social media engagement has been a challenging task, requiring a busy posting schedule, which the small team of five to ten organisers has struggled to keep up with. No longer students and living in different countries, the organisers use Google Suite to communicate, which has been effective but does not allow the same level of engagement as communicating in person.
The plan is to recruit volunteers to help boost social media presence and create a critical mass for the ECI. To do so, they’re trying to learn from others, such as the Stop Destroying Videogames ECI, which had a team of volunteers spreading the message on Reddit and other platforms. They collected almost 1.5 million signatures, a success story Save Your Flight would like to repeat, with a focus on LinkedIn. The organisers just need a team. “We still are collecting signatures, so we would love to see if the readers are interested in our topic and if they're passionate about passenger rights,” says Marian. “I would like to make an informal call to action if anyone wants to contact us and get involved.”
Read also:
- Shades of success: The many ways to succeed with an ECI
- What you can achieve with the European citizens’ initiative – even without one million signatures
Contributors
Goda NaujokaitytėGoda Naujokaitytė is a freelance journalist specialising in European policy and writes about the European citizens’ initiative for ProMedia. Her work is informed by her experience in Brussels, both inside and outside the EU institutions, as well as time spent living in various European countries. She covers primarily EU digital, green and competitiveness policy, as well as research and innovation in the European Union.
Read other stories from Goda:
Amid global chaos ECI activism is important as ever, says Commissioner Šefčovič
How the ‘Stop Destroying Videogames’ ECI went viral — and what you can learn from it
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The opinions expressed on the ECI Forum reflect solely the point of view of their authors and can in no way be taken to reflect the position of the European Commission or of the European Union.
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