By its judgment issued on 3 February 2022 in case C-20/21[1], the Court of Justice of the European Union (the “Court”) once again ruled on the identification of the “place of performance” of the obligation in the event of a single booking of a flight divided into multiple legs.
The applicable statutory rule is the second indent of Article 7(1)(b)[2] of Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters for a claim for compensation brought on the basis of Regulation (EC) No 261/2004.
Pursuant to the above provision, in the case of the provision of services, the competent jurisdiction must be identified having regard to the Member State where, under the contract, the goods were delivered or should have been delivered.
The question arises, therefore, as to whether individual flight legs - involving several Member States - can be considered as “place of performance”, so that appeals can also be lodged with the judicial authorities of the place where the intermediate stopover took place, or, otherwise, whether only the courts of the place of departure and final destination should have jurisdiction.
Clearly, such situations are recurrent and very frequent in international air transport of passengers and cargo.
This issue was already addressed in the past when, in case C-606/19[3], the Court was called to rule on a dispute arising from main proceedings brought by two passengers, who had made a single booking comprising three legs of journey: (i) a flight from Hamburg (Germany) to London (United Kingdom), operated by British Airways; (ii) a connecting flight from London to Madrid (Spain); and (iii) a final flight from Madrid to San Sebastian (Spain), with the latter two legs of the journey operated by Iberia.
Since the last leg of the journey, which was entirely on Spanish territory, had been cancelled without notice in due time, the passengers referred the matter to the District Court of Hamburg (Germany), which - questioning its competence to rule, as a court abstractly identified on the basis of the place of departure of the first leg of journey - referred the matter to the Court of Justice.
The Court, hearing the case, by order dated 13 February 2020, specified that “the «place of performance» […] in respect of a flight consisting of a confirmed single booking for the entire journey and divided into several legs, can be the place of departure of the first leg of the journey, where transport on those legs of the journey is performed by two separate air carriers and the claim for compensation […] arises from the cancellation of the final leg of the journey and is brought against the air carrier in charge of that last leg”.
The above approach was again confirmed in the judgment of 3 February 2022 in case no. C-20/21 at issue here, adding new elements of interpretation.
The case at hand originates from a single booking with Lufthansa AG for a flight from Warsaw (Poland) to Malé (Maldives), with a connecting flight in Frankfurt (Germany), made by certain passengers[4].
Due to the late take-off of the first leg, passengers landed late in Frankfurt and, therefore, missed their connecting flight to Malé and reached their final destination after a delay of more than four hours.
The passengers therefore went to the Amtsgericht Frankfurt (Frankfurt local court), seeking compensation for damages under Article 7 of Regulation No 261/2004.
By a judgment of 29 April 2020, said local court, having regard to the provisions of Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012, as interpreted by the Court, recognised its incompetence to hear on the case, since neither the place of departure (Warsaw - Poland) nor the place of arrival of the flight (Malè - Maldives) fell within its jurisdiction.
Said judgment was challenged before the referring court, the Landgericht Frankfurt am Main (Frankfurt District Court), which then referred the matter to the Court of Justice, stating that it could only consider itself competent if the place of arrival of the first leg of the flight in question, i.e. Frankfurt, could be qualified as the “place of performance” of the obligation arising from the contract of transport in question.
Further to such request, the Court added an important piece to the evolution of the interpretation of the second indent of Article 7(1)(b) of Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012, holding that the place of performance within the meaning of that provision “must be interpreted as meaning that, in respect of a flight consisting of a confirmed single booking for the entire journey and divided into two or more legs on which transport is performed by separate air carriers, where a claim for compensation, brought on the basis of Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 arises exclusively from a delay of the first leg of the journey caused by a late departure and is brought against the air carrier operating that first leg, the place of arrival for that first leg may not be classified as a ‘place of performance’ within the meaning of that provision”.
More specifically, the Courts holds that, in the case at hand, in the absence of any elements that may justify, with a view to the efficacious conduct of proceedings, the existence of a sufficiently close link between the facts of the dispute and the jurisdiction of the court of the stopover place, «place of performance», within the meaning of the second indent of Article 7(1)(b) of Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 must be deemed the place of departure of the first leg of the journey, as being one of the places of the main provision of services that are the subject of the contract of carriage by air at issue.
This article is for information purposes only and is not, and cannot be intended as, a professional opinion on the topics dealt with. For any further information please contact Filippo Di Peio.
[1] For the full text of the judgment, see: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/IT/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A62021CJ0020&qid=1650809885468.
[2] Said article reads: “A person domiciled in a Member State may be sued in another Member State: a) i in matters relating to a contract, in the courts for the place of performance of the obligation in question; b) or the purpose of this provision and unless otherwise agreed, the place of performance of the obligation in question shall be: […] in the case of the provision of services, the place in a Member State where, under the contract, the services were provided or should have been provided”.
[3] For the full text of the judgment, see https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/IT/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A62019CO0606&qid=1649873181751.
[4] More specifically, the Warsaw-Frankfurt leg was operated by LOT Polish Airlines, while the Frankfurt-Malé leg was operated by Lufthansa AG.
