The Bottom Line
- Operational choices have consequences: Airlines cannot cite a knock-on effect, such as a potential curfew breach on a later flight, as an “extraordinary circumstance” to justify cancelling an earlier flight and avoiding compensation.
- The burden of proof is specific: An airline must prove that the passengers’ specific flight was unavoidably cancelled due to extraordinary circumstances, not that the cancellation was merely convenient for its overall schedule.
- Commercial convenience is not a legal defense: This ruling reinforces that economic or operational decisions made to optimize an airline’s network do not absolve it of its passenger compensation duties under EU Regulation 261/2004.
The Details
This case involved two passengers whose easyJet flight from Milan to Amsterdam was cancelled. The airline refused to pay the standard €250 per passenger compensation, arguing the cancellation was due to “extraordinary circumstances.” Specifically, easyJet claimed that the aircraft’s rotation was so delayed that operating the passengers’ flight would cause the subsequent return flight from Amsterdam back to Milan to violate Schiphol Airport’s strict night-time curfew. This, the airline argued, made the initial cancellation an unavoidable necessity.
The Noord-Holland District Court flatly rejected this defense. The judge’s reasoning was clear and direct: the Schiphol night-time curfew was a problem for the Amsterdam-to-Milan flight, not the passengers’ Milan-to-Amsterdam flight. The airline failed to provide any evidence showing why the original flight could not have operated, even if it were to arrive in Amsterdam late. The court essentially concluded that the problem cited by the airline did not directly prevent the performance of the specific flight the passengers had booked.
In its judgment, the court implied that easyJet had made an operational choice that was most favorable to its business interests, but this choice did not legally excuse it from its obligations. The decision highlights a crucial principle: the financial and legal consequences of commercial decisions cannot be passed off as unavoidable external events. For airlines, this means the reason for a cancellation must be directly and inextricably linked to the flight in question, not a secondary scheduling conflict created by the airline’s own operational planning.
Source
Rechtbank Noord-Holland
