The Weekly Roundup: We're Back!

• Published date: 11 January 2022
• Subject Matter: Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Trials & Appeals & Compensation, Personal Injury
• Law Firm: 1 Chancery Lane
• Author: Ms Sarah Prager

We trust that readers have bounded back to work refreshed and invigorated by their time off over the Christmas holidays, and ready for another exciting year at the international coalface. 2021 saw the resolution of the long running litigation in X v Kuoni and arising out of the Tunisian terrorist massacre, and, finally, the resolution of the jurisdictional challenge in Brownlie. But there's still plenty of litigation to be had in 2022, not least the COVID Cancellation Cases; the various jurisdictional challenges arising out of Brexit; and the operation of the Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements Regulations 2018. Not only that, but the team is beavering away as we speak on a new updated edition of Saggerson on Travel Law, the definitive practitioners' travel law textbook, and we've already received requests to unleash it on an unsuspecting nation by way of a book signing tour. We rather like the idea of a roadtrip; watch this space for dates to be announced.

Liability under Regulation (EC) No.261/2004: an Update; and How Not to Dispute the Court's Jurisdiction

As 2021 came to an end, and as busy practitioners started finally to wind down for Christmas, both the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Court of Appeal of England and Wales marked the turn of the year in style, each producing decisions on the interpretation of the Denied Boarding Regulations.

Early Flights

First, the CJEU. On 21^st December 2021 the Court gave judgment in the joined cases Azurair and Others, Cases C-146/20, C-188/20, C-196/20 and C-270/20, in Airhelp, Case C-263/20, and in Corendon Airlines, Case C-395/20. In all of the cases passengers sought compensation not for delay or cancellation of flights, but for flights having been brought forward. The Court determined that where a flight is brought forward by more than one hour, it is to be regarded for the purposes of the Regulation as having been cancelled, with the consequence that passengers are entitled to be compensated in the amounts set out in the Regulation ('250, '400 or '600, depending on length of flight), whether or not they have actually boarded and taken the flight. The rationale behind the decision is that bringing flights forward may be just as inconvenient as pushing them back, although it is noteworthy that pursuant to its previous decision in Sturgeon v Condor, Cases C-402/07 and 432/07 the Court ruled that a delay of three hours rather than one qualified as a cancellation. Therefore airlines cannot seek to avoid paying compensation to passengers by deploying the argument that they have actually carried them to their destination, either as originally planned or by way of rerouting.

Furthermore, passengers...