Air Baltic Corporation AS v Lietuvos Respublikos (2016) C-429/14 CJEU
European Court of Justice, Third Chamber
Facts
12 The Investigation Service, acting through a travel agency, purchased flight tickets in order for two of its agents to travel on official business between Vilnius (Lithuania) and Baku (Azerbaijan), via Riga (Latvia) and Moscow (Russia). According to the schedule, the agents concerned would leave Vilnius at 9.55 on 16 January 2011 and would arrive in Baku at 22.40 the same day, and the carrier on the flights between Vilnius, Riga and Moscow would be Air Baltic.
13 The Investigation Service’s agents left Vilnius and arrived in Riga on schedule. However, the following flight left Riga and landed in Moscow behind schedule. Consequently, they were unable to connect on to the flight they were scheduled to take from Moscow to Baku. Air Baltic put them on another flight, which left Moscow and arrived in Baku one day later than originally scheduled.
14 Since the delay before the agents arrived at their final destination extended the time of their official business travel by over 14 hours, the Investigation Service paid them LTL 1168.35 (approximately EUR 338) in travel expenses and State social security contributions, as it was required to do under Lithuanian legislation. The Investigation Service then sought to be compensated for that amount by Air Baltic, who did not agree to do so.
15 In those circumstances, the Investigation Service brought proceedings before the Vilniaus miesto 1-asis apylinkės teismas (First District Court of the City of Vilnius) seeking to have Air Baltic ordered to pay it compensation in the amount of LTL 1168.35 (approximately EUR 338) by way of damages.
Issue(s)
The Supreme Court of Lithuania referred the following questions to the CJEU:
(1) Are Articles 19, 22 and 29 of the Montreal Convention to be understood and interpreted as meaning that an air carrier is liable to third parties, inter alia to the passengers’ employer, a legal person with which a transaction for the international carriage of passengers was entered into, for damage occasioned by a flight’s delay, on account of which the applicant (the employer) incurred additional expenditure connected with the delay (for example, the payment of travel expenses)?
(2) If the first question is answered in the negative, is Article 29 of the Montreal Convention to be understood and interpreted as meaning that those third parties have the right to bring claims against the air carrier on other bases, for example, in reliance upon national law?
Discussion
27 […] [U]nder Article 19 of the Montreal Convention carriers are bound by a general obligation to compensate for any ‘damage occasioned by delay in the carriage by air of passengers, baggage or cargo’.
28 Although that article defines which damage is compensable according to the event that caused it, it does not specify in any manner whatsoever who may have suffered that damage.
29 In those circumstances, Article 19 of the Montreal Convention, although not providing explicitly for an air carrier to be liable to an employer such as the one at issue in the main proceedings in the event of damage occasioned by delay of flights carried out pursuant to a contract of international carriage binding that employer and carrier, lends itself to being interpreted as applying not only to damage caused to passengers themselves but also to damage suffered by an employer.
[…]
38 Nevertheless, Article 1(1) of the Montreal Convention should be interpreted in the light of the third recital in the preamble to that convention, which emphasises the importance of ensuring protection of the interests of consumers in international carriage by air, it being understood that the concept of ‘consumer’ for the purposes of that convention should not be confused with the concept of ‘passenger’, but may include persons who are not themselves carried and are therefore not passengers.
39 Given that objective, the lack of reference in the wording of Article 1(1) of the Montreal Convention to persons who retain the services of an international air carrier for the purpose of carriage of their employees as passengers cannot be construed as excluding those persons from the scope of application of that convention and, consequently, any damage they may suffer in association therewith.
40 It thus follows from the analysis of Article 1(1) of the Montreal Convention that damage suffered by such persons are liable to come within the scope of application of the Montreal Convention.
41 Thirdly and lastly, it is apparent from a number of converging provisions of the Montreal Convention that it establishes a link between the air carrier’s liability, on the one hand, and the presence of a contract of international carriage concluded by that air carrier and another party, on the other; whether or not that other party itself is a passenger or not is of no particular relevance for the purposes of the carrier’s liability potentially being engaged in connection with that contract.
42 Thus, Article 1(2) of the Montreal Convention, in defining the concept of international carriage, refers to the ‘agreement between the parties’ concerning the place of departure and the place of destination for the carriage, which indicates that it is envisaged as taking place within a contractual framework.
43 Moreover, as observed in paragraph 25 of this judgment, under Article 29 of the Montreal Convention any action for damages, however founded, whether under that convention or in contract or in tort or otherwise, can only be brought subject to the conditions and such limits of liability as are set out therein, unless the carrier stipulates higher limits of liability in the contract or the contract provides for no limits of liability whatsoever, as allowed under Article 25 thereof.
44 Moreover, Article 33(1) of the Montreal Convention states that such an action may be brought, among other options open to the plaintiff, before the court of the domicile of the carrier with whom the contract has been made.
45 Lastly, Article 3(5) of the Montreal Convention provides that non-compliance with the air carrier’s specific obligations to provide information and issue documents in international carriage of persons does not affect the existence or the validity of the contract of carriage, which nonetheless remains subject to the rules of that convention, including those relating to limitation of liability.
46 It follows from all the foregoing that, given its wording and the context of which it forms a part and the consumer protection objective pursued by the Montreal Convention, Article 19 thereof must be interpreted as being applicable not only to the damage suffered by a passenger but also to the damage suffered by a person in its capacity as an employer having concluded a contract of international carriage with an air carrier for the purpose of carriage of passengers who are its employees.
47 However, as is apparent from paragraph 12 of this judgment, in the main proceedings, the person in question has sought compensation for damage resulting for it from the delay of a flight performed under a contract of international carriage the purpose of which is carriage of not one but two of its employees. In such a situation, the possibility cannot be ruled out that the amount of damages claimed by that person might be higher than what each of the passengers in question might have sought had they brought proceedings as individuals.
48 Given the limitation on the air carrier’s liability ‘for each passenger’ laid down in Article 22(1) of the Montreal Convention, it must therefore be ascertained whether the interpretation of Article 19 thereof as set out in paragraph 46 of this judgment is not called into question by the fact that, in concluding the convention, the parties thereto also intended to achieve an equitable balance between the various interests present, as evidenced by the fifth recital in the preamble thereto.
49 Under the requirement that liability be limited ‘for each passenger’, the amount of damages which may be awarded to the person, such as the one at issue in the main proceedings, who has brought proceedings for compensatory damages resulting from a delay in the international carriage of passengers cannot, in any event, exceed the amount obtained by multiplying the limit laid down in Article 22(1) of the Montreal Convention by the number of passengers carried under the contract concluded by that person and the air carrier or carriers concerned.
50 A compensation arrangement such as this is liable to strike an equitable balance between the various interests present. Under the limitation provided for in Article 22(1) of the Montreal Convention, persons such as the one at issue in the main proceedings are placed in a position which is neither more nor less favourable than that of passengers who themselves suffered damage as a result of a delay.
51 Air carriers, for their part, are guaranteed that their liability may not be engaged above the limit ‘for each passenger’ fixed by that provision, since, as set out in paragraph 49 above, the compensation awarded to such persons cannot in any case exceed the cumulative amount of compensation that could be awarded to all of the passengers concerned if they were to bring proceedings individually.
52 It follows that the answer to the first question is that the Montreal Convention, in particular Articles 19, 22 and 29 thereof, must be interpreted as meaning that an air carrier which has concluded a contract of international carriage with an employer of persons carried as passengers, such as the employer at issue in the main proceedings, is liable to that employer for damage occasioned by a delay in flights on which its employees were passengers pursuant to that contract, on account of which the employer incurred additional expenditure.
[…]
54 Given the answer to the first question, there is no need to answer the second question.
Useful for
Treaty provisions considered
Legislation considered
None identified.Key subjects or concepts
Damages/ Scope under MC99/Appeals history
By judgment of 30 November 2012, the First District Court of the City of Vilnius upheld the Investigation Service’s action. On 7 November 2013, the Regional Court, Vilnius dismissed Air Baltic’s appeal and upheld that judgment. Air Baltic then appealed in cassation to the Supreme Court of Lithuania, which referred the questions to the CJEU.
Other case information
Lawyers or counsel before the European Court of Justice, Third Chamber:No counsel or legal team identified for this case.
Additional case references or citations:
ECLI:EU:C:2016:88
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