The Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) has just reinforced
Passengers´ rights in another seminal ruling in connection with the Air
Passenger Compensation Regulation (EC) No 261/2004.


The case concerned a journey by a passenger of Air France from Bremen
(Germany) to Asunción (Paraguay), via Paris (France) and São Paulo
(Brazil). The departure of the flight from Bremen to Paris was delayed
by about two and a half hours. This delay led to her missing her
connecting flight in Paris for São Paulo. She was re-booked her on to a
later flight to the same destination. Because of her late arrival in São
Paulo, though, she also missed the original connecting flight to
Asunción where she finally arrived 11 hours after the arrival time
originally scheduled.


Air France refused payment opening the way for the ECJ to come up with
this groundbreaking ruling after being asked to do so by the BGH. Air
France acknowledged that the first flight got delayed but stressed the
delay was but for a period of less than three hours. The connecting
flights were to be disregarded in the overall calculation since they
embarked on time.

As background:
In its judgment in Sturgeon and Others (Compensation or no Compensation II) the ECJ held that passengers whose flights are delayed may also be compensated, even though the regulation expressly grants a right to compensation only when flights are cancelled, provided that they reach their final destination three hours or more after the scheduled arrival time.

The ECJ did not follow Air France´s argument to disregard the connecting
flights. In the spirit of passenger and consumer protection it ruled,
in a nutshell, that a passenger on directly connecting flights must be
compensated when he has been delayed at departure for a period below
those three hours, but has arrived at his final destination at least
three hours later than the scheduled arrival time. Thus the compensation
is not conditional on a delay at departure.


Court of Justice of the European Union, Judgment in Case C-11/11,
26.02.2013, Air France SA v Heinz-Gerke Folkerts and Luz-Tereza Folkerts


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