X v Emirates [2016] FR Court of Cassation, 30 November, Appeal No 15-21.590
Cour de Cassation, France
Facts
The passengers were booked to fly from Paris to Kuala Lumpur via Dubai but they were delayed on the flight to Dubai by over two hours and by over ten hours in reaching their final destination.
It appears that the substantial cause for the delay at final destination occurred as a result of problems in Dubai, in the UAE.
Issue(s)
In the argument of Emirates:
1°/ that Regulation 261/2004 of 11 February 2004 establishing common rules on compensation and assistance to passengers in the event of denied boarding, cancellation or long delay of flights, applies to passengers departing from an airport located in the territory of a Member State subject to the provisions of the Treaty, as well as to passengers departing from an airport located in a third country and bound for an airport located in the territory of a Member State subject to the provisions of the Treaty, when the operating air carrier which carries out the flight is a Community carrier; that it follows that when the actual air carrier is not a Community carrier and the connection is made from a third country to a country outside the Community, the provisions of the regulation cannot govern this flight. (emphasis added)
Discussion
The Court of Cassation published the following as the motivation for its decision:
But whereas, on the one hand, after having recalled that it follows from the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union that passengers on a connecting flight operated by the same carrier are entitled to compensation, on the basis of article 7 of regulation 261/2004, when their flight arrives at its final destination with a delay of three hours or more in relation to the initially scheduled arrival time (judgment of February 26, 2013, Folkerts, C-11/11), the local court rightly deduced that, having suffered a delay of more than three hours on arrival at [Location 2], their final destination, Mr. and Mrs. [G] were entitled to compensation. G] were entitled to compensation, regardless of whether the flight in question, which was the connection to a flight departing from an airport situated in the territory of a Member State subject to the provisions of the Treaty, within the meaning of Article 3(1)(a) of the same regulation, and whose delay was the cause of the missed connection at [Location 1], departed from an airport situated in a third country, was bound for another third country, and was operated by a non-Community operating air carrier.
In French:
Mais attendu, d’une part, qu’après avoir rappelé qu’il résulte de la jurisprudence de la Cour de justice de l’Union européenne que les passagers d’un vol avec correspondance assuré par un même transporteur effectif ont droit à une indemnisation, sur le fondement de l’article 7 du règlement n° 261/2004, lorsque leur vol arrive à destination finale avec un retard égal ou supérieur à trois heures par rapport à l’heure d’arrivée initialement prévue (arrêt du 26 février 2013, Folkerts, C-11/11), la juridiction de proximité en a déduit, à bon droit, qu’ayant subi un retard de plus de trois heures à l’arrivée à [Localité 2], leur destination finale, M. et Mme [G] avaient droit à une indemnisation, peu important que le vol en cause, qui constituait la correspondance d’un vol au départ d’un aéroport situé sur le territoire d’un État membre soumis aux dispositions du traité, au sens de l’article 3, § 1, sous a), du même règlement et dont le retard était à l’origine de la correspondance manquée à [Localité 1], ait été au départ d’un aéroport situé dans un pays tiers, à destination d’un autre pays tiers et réalisé par un transporteur aérien effectif non communautaire.
Useful for
Irrelevant under EU261 that delay caused in third or non-EU country
