On this weblog put up, Corinne Novell unpacks the CJEU’s latest preliminary ruling in M1.R. and M2.R. v AAA sp. z o.o. on the applicability of Regulation 261/2004 to flights booked as a part of a bundle vacation.
M1.R and M2.R had been holidaygoers who had booked a bundle vacation together with a flight from Tenerife to Warsaw, operated by AAA, the air service. A contract for tickets on that flight had been drawn up between CCC sp. zo.o., on behalf of the passengers, and BBB. BBB then paid the value of these flights to AAA. The flight was delayed by over 22 hours, triggering a possible proper to assert below Regulation 261/2004.
As readers will know, Regulation 261/2004 supplies compensation and help for passengers in instances of denied boarding, cancellations, or lengthy delays of flights. With the intention to have standing to deliver a declare, passengers will need to have a confirmed reservation – which means a ticket or ‘different proof’ – for the flight involved and current themselves for check-in: Article 2(g) and Article 3(2). The Regulation doesn’t apply the place passengers are travelling freed from cost or at a lowered fare not obtainable to the general public, although it does apply the place passengers have tickets issued below a frequent flyer programme or different business programme by an air service or tour operator: Article 3(3).
M1.R and M2.R claimed for compensation, submitting copies of their boarding passes for the flight; AAA refused to pay compensation on the bottom that that they had not established that they had a confirmed, paid reservation. AAA contended that the bundle tour had been paid for by CCC on preferential phrases, in order that these passengers travelled freed from cost or at a lowered fee, excluding the fitting to compensation below the Regulation. The passengers argued that the air service had obtained cost from BBB, obtained from CCC, and that it was for the air service to ascertain that the passengers had travelled freed from cost.
Proof of Reservation
The Courtroom dominated {that a} boarding move qualifies as ‘different proof’ below Article 2(g) of the regulation. A passenger holding a boarding move is taken into account to have a ‘confirmed reservation’ below Article 3(2)(a), even when the boarding move doesn’t embrace all normal particulars just like the arrival time. Passengers with a boarding move will ordinarily be deemed to have a confirmed reservation for a flight.
Diminished fare
The Courtroom additionally addressed whether or not passengers touring as a part of a bundle tour, the place the tour operator pays for the flight fairly than the passenger immediately, are excluded from the rights granted by the Regulation Passengers in such conditions had been discovered to nonetheless be entitled to compensation, so long as the value paid to the air service by the tour operator is in keeping with market circumstances, and the passenger was not touring freed from cost or at a lowered fare not obtainable to the general public.
Importantly, the burden of proof for establishing whether or not a passenger travelled freed from cost or at a lowered fare lies with the air service, not the passenger. It was careworn that this strategy aligns with the excessive degree of passenger safety supposed by the Regulation; with the air service (who, maybe not like the passenger who has booked by a bundle tour, was concerned within the cost course of) having to show any given exception applies fairly than the opposite method round.
Sensible impact
It will hardly be a world and journey weblog put up with out asking what the impact of this choice is in our post-Brexit world. As our avid readers will know, following Lipton v BA Cityflyer [2024] UKSC 24, Regulation 261/2004 itself continues to use, being deemed included into UK regulation in order to have change into retained UK regulation below s.3 of the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018; UK courts aren’t certain by this (or any) CJEU choice in figuring out a declare visiting upon the Regulation’s applicability, however could have regard to it, below ss.6(1) and 6(2) of the 2018 Act. This choice due to this fact joins the raft of case regulation serving as persuasive although not binding authorities on the patron protectionist intent of the Regulation.
