Delayed Flight Passengers Entitled Compensation

The Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) confirmed its previous ruling (joined cases C-402/07 and C-432/07 Sturgeon and Others) that passengers whose flights have been delayed for a long time may be compensated, a press release said.

According to the judgment on 23 October in joined cases C-581/10 – Nelson and Others v Deutsche Lufthansa AG and C-629/10 TUI Travel and Others v Civil Aviation Authority, the ECJ reconfirmed its Sturgeon decision that sees that passengers who reach their final destination three hours or more after the scheduled arrival time, may claim fixed compensation from the airline, unless the delay is caused by extraordinary circumstances.

By its judgment, the Court reiterated that the principle of equal treatment requires that passengers whose flights are delayed and those whose flights are cancelled “at the very last moment” must be regarded as being in comparable situations as regards the application of their right to compensation, because those passengers suffer similar inconvenience, namely, a loss of time.

The Court also found that the requirement to compensate passengers whose flights are delayed is compatible with the Montreal Convention*. In that connection, the Court finds that the loss of time inherent in a flight delay constitutes an inconvenience that is not governed by the Montreal Convention.

In addition, the Court noted that the obligation to pay compensation does not concern every delay, but only long delays. Moreover, airlines are not obliged to pay compensation if they can prove that the cancellation or long delay is caused by extraordinary circumstances.

* Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air, signed in Montreal on 9 December 1999, approved on behalf of the European Community by Decision 2001/539/EC of 5 April 2001 (OJ 2001 L 194, p. 38).