A lightning strike on an aircraft may constitute an ‘extraordinary circumstance’ under Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 governing the rights of air passengers, ruled the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in a judgment delivered on Thursday 16 October (Case C-399/24).
In Austria, a passenger is claiming €400 in compensation from Austrian Airlines. He was travelling on an Austrian airline plane that had arrived more than seven hours late in Vienna due to a lightning strike that grounded it in Romania and led to mandatory safety inspections.
Following a reference for a preliminary ruling, the Court of Justice is of the opinion that a lightning strike on an aircraft resulting in mandatory safety inspections constitutes an ‘extraordinary circumstance’ under EU law. According to the Court, a lightning strike is not intrinsically linked to an aircraft’s operating system, is not inherent to the normal exercise of the airline’s activity and is beyond the airline’s actual control.
In the CJEU’s view, this conclusion makes it possible to guarantee the safety of air passengers by preventing airlines from giving priority to the maintenance and punctuality of their flights over safety.
In order to be exempted from its obligation to pay compensation to the passengers concerned, Austrian Airlines must demonstrate that it took all reasonable measures to deal with the extraordinary circumstance (possible in-flight diversion, etc.) and its consequences, such as a long delay. The company must prove that, even if it had deployed all its personnel, material and financial resources, it could not have prevented the lightning strike from causing the flight to be cancelled or significantly delayed, unless it had to make intolerable sacrifices.
It is for the Austrian court to assess this in the present case.
To see the judgment of the Court of Justice: https://aeur.eu/f/j0g (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)