On 16 January 2025, the Court of Justice handed down its judgment in Case C‑516/23, NW and YS v Qatar Airways, on the interpretation of Article 3(3) and Article 8(1)(c) of Regulation (EC) No 261/2004. The request has been made in proceedings between air passengers NW and YS, on the one hand, and Qatar Airways, on the other, concerning a claim seeking compensation for the failure of the latter to comply with its obligation to ensure the re-routing of those passengers to their final destination.

In the context of a promotional campaign organised by Qatar Airways for a limited period and reserved exclusively for health professionals, allowing them to make flight bookings by paying only the related taxes and charges, on 15 August 2020 NW and YS made a reservation for return flights from Frankfurt am Main to Denpasar with a stopover in Doha. On 13 September 2020, however, Qatar Airways cancelled those flights, and operated no further ones to Denpasar until the spring of 2022. On 8 August 2022, therefore, NW and YS gave Qatar Airways formal notice to re-route them to Denpasar on 20 October 2022 and to operate their return flight to Frankfurt am Main on 7 November 2022, instructing it to make the necessary arrangements for that purpose by 18 August 2022. As that formal notice produced no effect, NW and YSreserved those flights using benefits acquired under a frequent flyer programme. At a later time, NW and YS brought an action against Qatar Airways before the Landgericht Frankfurt am Main (Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main; the “referring court”) which, in light of the need to interpret the relevant European legislation, decided to stay the proceedings and to refer to the Court of Justice three questions for a preliminary ruling:

By the first question, the referring court asked whether the first alternative of the first sentence of Article 3(3) of Regulation No 261/2004 is to be interpreted as meaning that a passenger travels free of charge, within the meaning of that provision, where, in order to make his or her reservation, he or she had to pay only air transport taxes and charges.

According to the Court, however, an interpretation to the effect that a passenger travels free of charge and, accordingly, does not benefit from the application of the provisions of Regulation No 261/2004, even where he or she is liable to pay sums in respect of air transport taxes and charges, would undermine the purpose of that regulation to ensure a high level of protection for passengers.

By the second question, instead, the referring court asked whether the second alternative of the first sentence of Article 3(3) of Regulation No 261/2004 is to be interpreted as meaning that a passenger travels at a reduced fare not available directly or indirectly to the public, within the meaning of that provision, where he or she reserved his or her ticket in the context of a promotional campaign which was limited in time and in terms of the quantity of tickets offered and which was aimed at a specified professional category.

According to the Court, despite not being available to the entire population, the fares offered as part of the promotional campaign launched by Qatar Airways were limited not to certain individually specified persons, but to a specified professional group, namely health professionals, consisting of an indeterminate number of persons having no particular connection with that carrier beyond the framework of a customer relationship. The quantitative limit on the number of tickets available in the context of the promotional campaign, furthermore, does not appear to derive from specific characteristics of the professional group concerned, but rather justified by practical limitations imposed by Qatar Airways itself, which was not in a position to offer such fares to the entirety of the group concerned on account of its size.

By the third question, finally, the referring court asked whether Article 8(1)(c) of Regulation No 261/2004 is to be interpreted as requiring, for the purposes of its application, the existence of a temporal link between the cancelled flight and the re-routing one desired by a passenger and, if so, how that temporal link is to be defined.

According to the Court, for the purposes of Article 8(1)(c) of Regulation No 261/2004 the decisive factors are the passenger’s convenience and his or her wish to be re-routed at a specified later date, the only limitation in that regard being the availability of seats, so that an air carrier may refuse a re-routing flight acceptable to the passenger concerned only where there are no available seats.

Marco Stillo