The winner will get an expenses paid trip to the European Innovation Convention, which will take place in Brussels at the end of this year, and he or she will meet the Commissioner and other leading political, scientific and business figures.

The Common European Passenger Transport Platform should offer passengers accessible and comprehensive information regarding their cross border travels, including interconnections, interoperability and multimodality; provide a standardized way of ticket issuing and invoicing, enabling passengers to use a single ticket concerning their whole travel across different Member States and including all means of transport; offer a common system for complaints enabling consumers to alert travel operators from other EU Member States to the problems occurred.

But it is boosting profits for Monsanto and giving MEPs all expenses paid trips to palm oil plantations in Malaysia, so that is all right is it not?

An integrated charter of passengers’ rights would enable everyone – including people living with disabilities – to make use of transportation services, including group travel services.

Similarly, most people would happily take a free all-expenses-paid trip that must be taken within the next 12 months if their name were drawn by Air Canada in a lottery.

Neither would it cover cases such as those of an au pair travelling abroad with a family for which he/she worked, or of a case reported in the British press concerning so-called skiing Chalet Girls acting and cooks and maids for short periods during holiday seasons, working for expenses and pocket money.