The Court of Justice of the European Union has provided clarification on the right to an appropriate reduction in the price of a package holiday for any period of non-conformity of the services provided, responding to a reference for a preliminary ruling made by the Regional Court of Munich I on the interpretation of Article 14§1 of Directive (EU) 2015/2302 on package travel and related travel services.
The case C-396/21 was between two travellers (the applicants in the main proceedings) and a tour operator, FTI-Touristik, from whom the travellers had purchased a package holiday comprising a return flight from Germany to Gran Canaria and a stay on the island from 13 to 27 March 2020.
The travellers had requested a 70% reduction in the price of the trip following restrictions imposed on the place of stay, in application of the decisions adopted by the Spanish authorities on 15 March 2020 to combat the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic (closed beach, curfew, etc.) The travellers had to make an early return.
FTI-Touristik refused to grant the requested discount.
The travellers appealed to the Munich Regional Court, which, in a judgment of 26 November 2020, rejected the appeal, considering that the measures taken by the Spanish authorities represented measures to protect the health of the travellers and that this protection could not lead to a “lack of conformity” of the trip.
The travellers appealed against this decision to the Regional Court in Munich I.
For the Court, Article 14§1 must be interpreted as meaning that “a traveller is entitled to a reduction in the price of his or her package where a lack of conformity of the travel services included in the package is due to restrictions imposed at the travel destination to fight the spread of an infectious disease and where such restrictions have been similarly imposed at his or her place of residence and in other States because of the worldwide spread of the disease”.
According to the judges, in order to be appropriate, the price reduction must be assessed in relation to the services included in the package concerned and correspond to the value of the services found to be lacking in conformity. Furthermore, the Court clarifies that the organiser’s obligations resulting from the package travel contract include those explicitly stipulated in the contract, but also those linked to it resulting from the purpose of the contract. It will be for the national court to assess whether the reduction in the price of the package corresponds to the value of the travel services lacking in conformity.
More information (in French): https://aeur.eu/f/4va (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)