argomento: News del mese - Diritto Internazionale e Comunitario

Articoli Correlati: Flight - cancelation - exceptional circumstance

On 7 July 2022, the E.U. Court of Justice, in the judgment C-308/21 in a case in which passengers had asked the airline SATA International - Azores Airlines SA for a sum as compensation for a general failure in the refueling system of an airport which resulted in a flight delay of more than three hours or a flight cancellation, clarified that a general failure in the refueling system can be considered an “exceptional circumstance” of Regulation (EC) no. 261/2004, in the event that the airport of origin of the flights or the aircraft is responsible for the management of the aircraft refueling system. Therefore, this is an event whose origin is external to the air carrier and which, consequently, is beyond its effective control. The impact of the ruling is significant given that it could lead to limiting the complaints of passengers of canceled flights or long delayed flights, obviously only if this type of “exceptional circumstances” occurs. Specifically, it was found that the delay of flight S4321 and the cancellation of flight S4142 were caused by a sudden and unexpected failure in the refueling system of the Lisbon airport, which occurred on 10 May 2017 starting at 13:19; the breakdown required a reorganization of all the aerial operations of the platform of that airport, making it necessary to resort to the fuel depots of the neighboring airports.