Flight Cancellation - Extraordinary Circumstances and Compensation

Bruno Teleze Stroebel

Keywords

Consumer; Passenger; Flight Cancellation; Extraordinary Circumstances; Compensation; Regulation 261/2004.

Abstract

The Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council established, in 2004, common rules on compensation and assistance to air passengers in the event of denied boarding and of cancellation or long delay of flights. The Article 5(3) of the Regulation states that the operating air carrier shall not be obliged to pay compensation if it can prove that the cancellation is caused by extraordinary circumstances that could not have been avoided even if all rea-sonable measures had been taken. Thus, it was up to the Jurisprudence to analyze the situations brought to the court to exempt (or not) the air carriers from compensating their passengers. This text presents an analysis of the judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union, as well as Portuguese courts, through identification of which situations are considered extraordinary and, therefore, exempted from compensation to the passenger/consumer.