The judges of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled in a judgment of Thursday 11 July in Case C-502/18 that in the case of flights with a single connecting flight from a Member State to a non-Member State via another non-Member State, the air carrier that made the first flight is obliged to compensate passengers who have suffered significant delay on arrival of the second flight operated by an air carrier that is not established in the EU.
Passengers made a single reservation with a Czech air carrier for a flight from Prague, Czech Republic, to Bangkok, Thailand, via Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The first Prague-Abu Dhabi flight, operated by the Czech operator, arrived on time at its destination. But the second flight, Abu Dhabi-Bangkok, operated by an Emirates carrier on a code-share basis, was delayed by 488 minutes, which may therefore result in compensation under Regulation 261/2004 on air passenger rights.
The aggrieved passengers brought an action before the Czech courts against the Czech carrier in order to obtain compensation, which the company contests, since it does not consider itself liable for the delay of the second flight operated by another air carrier.
When this dispute was brought before the Municipal Court of Prague, it referred the matter to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling on whether or not the Czech operator was required to pay compensation to the plaintiffs.
In their judgment, the judges first recalled that a flight with one or more connections that have been the subject of a single reservation constitutes a whole with regard to the right to compensation under the regulation in question. Indeed, a connecting flight, the first flight of which was made from an airport located in the territory of a Member State, falls within the scope of the Regulation, even if the second flight of that connecting flight was made by a carrier established outside the EU to and from a non-Member State.
Secondly, the judges point out that the obligation to compensate only applies to the operating air carrier of the flight concerned, the effectiveness of which is characterised by the fact that a carrier has completed the flight in question. This is the case here for the Czech operator, since it operated one of the two flights.
As a result, the Government is under an obligation to compensate passengers who have experienced a significant delay on the second flight between Abu Dhabi and Bangkok. Nevertheless, the judges point out that Regulation 261/2004 gives the operator who compensated the passengers the possibility to bring proceedings against the operator responsible for the delay of the flight concerned. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)