Status: 09/29/2022 2:17 p.m
It does not have to be a court – an authority can also enforce customer claims against airlines in the event of delays. The European Court of Justice decided that. The authority must meet certain requirements.
In the event of a long delay, a national authority can oblige the airline to pay passengers compensation. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg ruled that a separate court order is not necessary.
According to the court, however, the authorities must have been authorized by the state to do so. Such authorities can be national consumer protection authorities. However, they are not obliged under EU law to enforce such compensation.
Compensation amounts are standardized
The ECJ justified its decision with the fact that the purpose of the flat-rate compensation is to avoid the inconvenience of a claim for damages. According to the judgement, the flat-rate compensation amounts in the regulation are standardized because they are each intended to compensate for damage that is practically the same for all passengers. The amount of the payment is therefore easy to determine.
However, cases relating to passenger rights in the event of delays should still be able to end up in court. According to the ECJ, it is crucial that both the passengers and the airlines can take legal action against the decision of the authority.
The background was cases from Hungary
The background to the ECJ decision were cases from Hungary. Several passengers flew from New York to Budapest with the Polish airline Lot. The flight was delayed for more than three hours. The passengers contacted the competent Hungarian authority with a request to organize a compensation payment, citing Lot’s European Air Passenger Rights Regulation. The authority did the same after it found a violation of the regulation. She instructed Lot to pay 600 euros to each affected passenger.
However, the airline believed that only courts could order such a payment – and appealed to the Metropolitan Court of Justice in Budapest. He asked the ECJ whether a national body responsible for enforcing the regulation could oblige an airline to pay following complaints from passengers.
Case number: C-597/20