An air passenger who, after having been compensated for the cancellation of a flight, has agreed to travel on another flight (re-routing) and has reached their final destination three hours or more after the originally scheduled arrival time of that flight, is entitled to compensation for the delay of the re-routing flight, according to a judgment of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) delivered on Thursday 12 March (Case C-832/18).
This case started when passengers filed an appeal against Finnair claiming double compensation from the airline: firstly for the cancellation of their direct flight Helsinki-Singapore due to a technical problem on the aircraft and secondly for the delay of more than 3 hours in the arrival of the Helsinki-Chongqing-Singapore rerouting flight that Finnair had offered them.
While the airline agreed to compensate them for the cancellation of the original flight, it refused to do so in the case of rerouting.
Finnair considered that passengers were not entitled to a second compensation under the European Regulation on air passenger rights (261/2004) and that the re-routing flight had been delayed due to 'extraordinary circumstances' within the meaning of that Regulation.
When the case was referred to it, the ECJ first found that Regulation 261/2004 does not contain any provision aimed at limiting the rights of passengers who find themselves in a situation of re-routing, such as the one at issue, including a possible limitation of their right to compensation.
It then stressed that " technical shortcomings inherent in aircraft maintenance cannot, in principle, constitute 'extraordinary circumstances' as such". In this case, the delay was caused by a failure of one of the three steering servos, a so-called 'on condition' part, which would only be replaced by a new part if the previous one failed.
Considering that the failure of a so-called 'on condition' part constitutes an event which is inherent in the normal exercise of the air carrier's activity, the Court finally concluded that the passengers who brought the action do indeed enjoy the right to compensation.
To consult the judgement: http://bit.ly/2Q9miAk (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)