Court confirms its 2009 Sturgeon judgment
>> Regulation No 261/2004 provides that, if their flights are cancelled, passengers may receive fixed compensation amounting to between €250 and €600. In the judgment in Sturgeon and Others (Joined Cases C-402/07 and C-432/07, Sturgeon and Others [2009] ), the Court of Justice found that if passengers reached their final destination three hours or more after the arrival time originally scheduled, they may claim fixed compensation from the airline, unless the delay was caused by extraordinary circumstances.
In Case C‑581/10, the referring court was
hearing a dispute between passengers
and the airline Lufthansa concerning the delay to the passengers’ flight of
more than 24 hours in relation to the original schedule. In C-629/10, TUI Travel, British Airways,
easyJet Airline and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) had
brought proceedings before UK Courts following the Civil Aviation Authority’s
refusal, on the ground that it was bound to give effect to the ruling in
Sturgeon and Others, of their request not to impose on them an obligation to
compensate passengers whose flights were delayed.
The referring courts inter alia asked whether,
and if so under what conditions, passengers whose flights were delayed enjoyed
the right to compensation under Regulation 261/2004.
The Court of Justice reiterated that the
principle of equal treatment required that comparable situations must not be
treated differently and that different situations must not be treated in the
same way unless such treatment was objectively justified (Joined Cases C-402/07
and C-432/07 Sturgeon and Others [2009]).
The Court argued that passengers whose flights
were delayed and those whose flights were cancelled must be considered as being
in comparable situations, for the purposes of compensation under Regulation
261/2004, because those passengers suffered similar inconvenience, namely, a
loss of time equal to or in excess of three hours in relation to the original
planning of that flight.
The Court concluded that Articles 5 to 7 of Regulation 261/2004
must be interpreted as meaning that passengers whose flights were delayed were entitled
to compensation under that regulation where they suffered, on account of such
flights, a loss of time equal to or in excess of three hours, that was, where
they reached their final destination three hours or more after the arrival time
originally scheduled by the air carrier. Such a delay did not, however, entitle
passengers to compensation if the air carrier could prove that the long delay
was caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided
even if all reasonable measures had been taken, namely circumstances beyond the
actual control of the air carrier.
The referring courts furthermore asked whether Arts
5 to 7 of Regulation 261/2004 were valid in the light of the second
sentence of Art. 29 of the Montreal Convention, if they were interpreted as
meaning that passengers whose flights were delayed and who reached their final
destination three hours or more after the arrival time originally scheduled by
the air carrier were entitled to compensation under that regulation.
The Court reiterated that in Case C-344/04 IATA
and ELFAA [2006], the Court held that it did not follow from Arts 19, 22 and 29
of the Montreal Convention, or from any other provision thereof, that the
authors of that convention intended to shield air carriers from any form of
intervention other than those laid down by those provisions, in particular
action which could be envisaged by the public authorities to redress, in a
standardised and immediate manner, the damage that was constituted by the
inconvenience that delay in the carriage of passengers by air caused , without
the passengers having to suffer the inconvenience inherent in the bringing of
actions for damages before the courts.
The Court held that, like the inconveniences
referred to in IATA and ELFAA , a loss of time could not be categorised as “damage
occasioned by delay” within the meaning of Art. 19 of the Montreal Convention,
and, for that reason, it fell outside the scope of Art. 29 of that convention.
The
Court found that the loss of time inherent in a flight delay, which constituted
an inconvenience within the meaning of Regulation 261/2004 and could not
be categorised as “damage occasioned by delay” within the meaning of Art. 19 of
the Montreal Convention, could not came within the scope of Art. 29 of that
convention. Consequently, the obligation under Regulation 261/2004 intended to
compensate passengers whose flights were subject to a long delay was compatible
with Art. 29 of the Montreal Convention.
It followed that that obligation to pay
compensation did not itself prevent the passengers concerned, should the same
delay also cause them individual damage conferring entitlement to compensation,
from being able to bring in addition actions to obtain, by way of redress on an
individual basis, damages under the conditions laid down by the Montreal
Convention.
In that connection, the Court had held, when
interpreting Art. 12 of Regulation 261/2004, entitled “Further compensation’,
that that Article was intended to supplemented the application of measures provided
for by that regulation, so that passengers were compensated for the entirety of
the damage that they had suffered due to the failure of the air carrier to
fulfil its contractual obligations. That provision thus allowed the national
court to order the air carrier to compensate damage arising, for passengers,
from breach of the contract of carriage by air on a legal basis other than Regulation
261/2004, that was to say, in particular, in the conditions provided for by the
Montreal Convention and national law (see
also: Case C‑83/10 Sousa Rodríguez and Others [2011]).
The referring courts also asked whether Arts 5
to 7 of Regulation 261/2004, as interpreted by Sturgeon and Others , were valid
in the light of the principle of legal certainty.
The Court of Justice held that as regards the
clarity of the obligations imposed on air carriers, it should be borne in mind
that the principle of legal certainty required that individuals should be able
to ascertain unequivocally what their rights and obligations were and take
steps accordingly (see Case 169/80 Gondrand and Garancini [1981]; Case C‑143/93
Van Es Douane Agenten [1996]; and Case C‑110/03 Belgium v Commission [2005]).
The Court however held that, having regard to
the requirements arising from the principle of equal treatment, air carriers could
not rely on the principle of legal certainty and claim that the obligation
imposed on them by Regulation 261/2004 to compensate passengers, in the event
of delay to a flight, up to the amount laid down therein infringed the latter
principle.
