Court of Justice: right to compensation for delayed flights outside the EU
Suppose you book two connecting flights with an EU airline that are operated by a non-EU airline. If a long delay occurs on the second flight, outside the EU, who is responsible for paying compensation?
Compensation
The Court's ruling concerns a delayed flight that departed from Brussels, Belgium, before making a stopover in Newark, United States, and landing in San Jose, United States. Both flights were supposed to be operated by Lufthansa, but were actually operated by US-based United Airlines. Travelers arrived at their final destination nearly four hours late due to a delay on the second flight, which prompted three travelers to demand compensation.
Passenger rights
In the EU, there are rules that entitle you to compensation in some situations, e.g. when your flight is delayed, overbooked or cancelled. To be eligible for compensation, your flight must meet certain criteria. For example, the flight must depart from an EU country or be operated by a European airline and land in another EU country.
In this case, the main issue was whether United Airlines was liable to pay compensation, as United Airlines is based in America and therefore not an EU airline. United Airlines operated the flights on behalf of Lufthansa, which meant the US airline did not actually have a contract with the travelers. The delay occurred outside the EU, on the second flight from Newark (United States) to San Jose (United States) So do EU rules apply?
Court's ruling
The Court ruled that, in this situation, travelers could request compensation from United Airlines. Although the US airline did not have a contract with the travelers, they were still responsible for operating the flight properly, as they are required to do when operating a flight on behalf of another airline.
According to the Court, it does not matter whether the delay occurred on a flight outside the EU or if the flight was operated by a non-EU airline, as long as the travelers started their flight in an EU country. In the event of a multi-flight journey, the Court added that the flights in question must be direct connecting flights, and that the airline operating the flight was entitled to recover the damage from the parties responsible for the delay.
Find out more
You can read the full ruling in case C-561/20 Q v. United Airlines Inc. on the Infocuria website (Case Law of the Court of Justice).