Link https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2020-06/cp200068en.pdf

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Court of Justice of the European Union 

PRESS RELEASE No 68/20

Luxembourg, 11 June 2020
Judgment in Case C-74/19  Transportes Aéreos Portugueses 
 
The unruly behaviour of an air passenger may constitute an ‘extraordinary circumstance’ capable of exempting the carrier from its obligation to pay compensation for the cancellation or long delay of the flight concerned or of a subsequent flight operated by that carrier using the same aircraft
Nevertheless, the air carrier must, in respect of the reasonable measures that it must adopt in order to release itself from its obligation to pay compensation, ensure the re-routing of passengers as soon as possible, by means of other direct or indirect flights which may be operated by other air carriers
In the judgment in Transportes Aéreos Portugueses (C-74/19), delivered on 11 June 2020, the Court defined the concepts of ‘extraordinary circumstances’ and ‘reasonable measures’ within the meaning of Regulation No 261/2004 (‘the regulation on the rights of air passengers’).1 Accordingly, it held that, under certain conditions, the unruly behaviour of a passenger which led to the re-routing of the aircraft, which caused the delay to the flight, constitutes an ‘extraordinary circumstance’, and that an operating air carrier may rely on that ‘extraordinary circumstance’ which affected not the cancelled or delayed flight but an earlier flight operated by that air carrier using the same aircraft. The Court also held that the re-routing of a passenger by the air carrier by means of the next flight operated by that air carrier and leading that passenger to arrive the day after the day initially envisaged constitutes a ‘reasonable measure’ releasing that carrier from its obligation to pay compensation only if certain conditions are met.
The dispute in the main proceedings is between a passenger