Marianne Butler reviews the airlines’ defence to rebut compensation claims for cancelled flights
Regulation 261/2004/EC (the regulation) provides common rules on compensation and assistance to passengers who are denied boarding or experience cancellation or long delay on any flight out of the EU and on certain flights into the EU.
Compensation for cancelled flights is fixed depending on the length of the flight. However, the airlines are afforded a complete defence where the cancellation is caused by “extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken” (see the Art 5(3) defence).
HARBORD
An NLJ article last year (see 156 NLJ 7233, p 1124) investigated what redress airline passengers could expect under the regulation and examined Harbord v Thomas Cook Airlines, 30 January 2006, unreported. In Harbord a passenger obtained £840 compensation where a technical fault on one of the airline’s fleet had led to his flight’s cancellation. The judge held that an airline could only rely on the Art 5(3) defence where it could show that the aircraft affected by the fault had been allocated to
