Legal disputes about Corona return flights: The return flight to Vienna of an Austrian couple was canceled at the beginning of the 2020 pandemic, the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stepped in. Who is paying?
Travelers who were brought home on a government-organized flight at the beginning of the corona pandemic cannot claim the money from the airline that should have brought them back. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) came to this judgment on Thursday in Luxembourg.
The ECJ judges pointed out in their judgment that only commercial flights fall under EU legislation on air passenger rights. It specifies the cases in which passengers are entitled to compensation. According to the ECJ ruling, a return flight organized by the state is not a commercial flight. It could be very different – for example with regard to the service on board.
An Austrian couple complained, whose return flight from Mauritius to Vienna was canceled at the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020. Instead, a flight organized by the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs brought it back. The spouses had to pay 500 euros per person for it. However, the flight was operated by the same airline at the same time as the couple’s originally scheduled flight. The spouses are therefore of the opinion that they were charged twice for the return flight and demanded a refund of the 1000 euros paid by the airline.
The ECJ pointed out that travelers could theoretically sue for reimbursement of other costs in national courts. This could be the price of the original flight ticket, for example.
Legal disputes regarding the Corona return flights are also currently ongoing in Germany. From mid-March 2020, around 270 charter flights brought 67,000 people back to Germany. However, the ECJ ruling should not have any influence on the German proceedings, since the ECJ is only concerned with possible reimbursements from travel providers – not with the state costs for the return flights.
Source: Stern
