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United Airlines plane at Los Angeles Airport
Photo: DANIEL SLIM / AFP
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has strengthened the rights of air passengers.
According to an ECJ ruling, anyone who arrives at their destination at a terminal airport outside the EU with a significant delay can be entitled to compensation of up to 600 euros.
This also applies if the flight or flights were operated by an airline from a third country.
The decisive factor is that the journey began in an EU country.
Then the connection falls within the scope of the EU Air Passenger Rights Regulation.
The background to the judgment is a case from Belgium: Three passengers had each requested 600 euros in compensation from United Airlines for a delay of more than three hours.
The second flight of her 2018 trip from Brussels to San José via Newark experienced technical problems.
They reached San José three hours and more than 40 minutes late.
The flights were booked with Lufthansa but operated by the American airline United Airlines.
In principle, under EU law, travelers have the option of requesting up to 250 euros for short flights if their connection is canceled or severely delayed.
This applies to flights of less than 1500 kilometers, for longer distances the amount of compensation increases to up to 600 euros.
However, there are exceptions, for example when passengers are informed about changes in good time or appropriate alternatives are offered for the journey.
According to EU law, the compensation must be paid out by the so-called operating airline.
The ECJ has now made it clear that this is the airline that makes the decision to carry out a specific flight, including the determination of the flight route - even if the flight was booked with Lufthansa.
In the present case, that operating air carrier was United Airlines.
However, the court also made it clear that United Airlines has the option of recovering this money from others if they are entitled to it under national law.
In addition, according to EU law, there is no right to compensation if compensation has already been paid in a third country.
The European consumer association Beuc welcomed the verdict.
"This is good news for consumers as it gives them peace of mind about their rights, whichever airline they use to fly out of the EU and how they book their ticket," said Patrycja Gautier, senior legal officer at Beuc.
United Airlines did not initially respond to the verdict.
The US airline had previously argued that it violated international law to apply the EU Air Passenger Rights Regulation to the present case.
The highest European court did not follow this view.
Case: C-561/20
fdi/dpa