The national authority responsible for enforcing Regulation (261/2004) on Air Passenger Rights may, following individual complaints, require a carrier to compensate passengers provided that the Member State concerned has conferred jurisdiction on it to do so, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on Thursday (Case C-597/20).
After their New York/Budapest flight was delayed for more than three hours, passengers asked the Hungarian authority responsible for enforcing the Air Passenger Rights Regulation to require the Polish airline LOT to pay each passenger €600 in compensation.
In its judgment, the Court recalls that the Regulation does not prohibit Member States from conferring on a national enforcement body the power to adopt enforcement measures following individual complaints by air passengers.
In this context, the Court notes that the lump sums provided for by the Regulation constitute standardised and immediate compensation which is intended to compensate only for losses which are virtually identical for all passengers concerned. Passengers and carriers as well as the above-mentioned organisations can therefore easily identify the amount of compensation due. And the purpose of granting such compensation is precisely to avoid the inconvenience of bringing actions for damages before the competent courts.
Therefore, Member States may empower the national body responsible for the enforcement of the Regulation to oblige an air carrier to compensate passengers following individual complaints from them.
However, the Court emphasised that passengers and air carriers must be able to appeal to the courts against the decision of the above-mentioned body.
See the Court’s judgment: https://aeur.eu/f/3c6 (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)