Jet2.com Ltd v Huzar

A technical problem constitutes an extraordinary circumstance under the passenger-compensation regime only if the event causing it is not inherent in the normal exercise of the air carrier’s activity and is beyond its actual control. Technical problems caused by ordinary wear and tear are inherent in airline operations, whether or not the particular defect was foreseeable or detectable through reasonable maintenance.

The inquiry concerns the nature or origin of the event causing the problem. It does not turn on the carrier’s ability to predict the defect, its fault, or its control over the subsequent repair. The concept of actual control elucidates what is inherent in normal operations; it does not convert an ordinary technical failure into an extraordinary circumstance merely because the carrier could not prevent it.

A passenger’s flight from Malaga to Manchester was delayed by approximately 27 hours because of an unforeseen and unforeseeable wiring defect in the aircraft’s fuel-valve circuit. The defect could not have been discovered through a reasonable system of maintenance or inspection.

The District Judge held that the defect was an extraordinary circumstance within Article 5(3) of Regulation (EC) No. 261/2004 and dismissed the compensation claim. On appeal, His Honour Judge Platts in Manchester County Court held that the exception did not apply and awarded compensation under Article 7.

The carrier appealed. The central issue was whether an unexpected and unforeseeable technical defect arising from ordinary wear and tear was an extraordinary circumstance because it lay beyond the carrier’s actual ability to prevent it.

1. Appeal dismissed. The unforeseen wiring defect did not constitute an extraordinary circumstance under Article 5(3) of Regulation (EC) No. 261/2004. His Honour Judge Platts had therefore reached the correct result, although the Court of Appeal disagreed with part of his reasoning.

2. The inquiry concerns the source or event causing a technical problem, rather than the steps required to resolve it. Under Wallentin-Hermann, a technical problem falls within the exception only where its causal event is not inherent in the normal exercise of the carrier’s activity and is beyond its actual control. The two concepts could be viewed as distinct conditions or as limbs of a composite test. It was unnecessary finally to choose between those analyses because the first limb was not satisfied.

3. Difficult technical problems arise as a matter of course in airline operations. Problems originating in ordinary wear and tear are inherent in the normal exercise of an air carrier’s activity, regardless of whether the particular defect was foreseeable or detectable through reasonable maintenance. Treating unforeseeability as decisive would wrongly replace the prescribed inquiry into the defect’s nature or origin with an inquiry into fault.

4. If the formulation is a composite test, actual control takes its meaning from what is inherent in normal airline activity. Technical failures forming part of everyday operations remain within the carrier’s sphere of control in that sense. Events caused by extraneous third parties or exceptional external conditions, such as terrorism, strikes, air-traffic-control problems or freak weather, may lie beyond it.

5. An unforeseeable technical problem is not, for that reason alone, an unexpected flight-safety shortcoming. Although the precise defect may not have been predicted, technical defects of this kind arise from time to time and are not out of the ordinary. A contrary construction would also create extensive disputes about foreseeability and undermine the Regulation’s wider compensatory purpose.

Lady Justice Gloster and Lord Justice Laws agreed with Lord Justice Elias.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): The carrier’s appeal was dismissed. The Manchester County Court’s award of compensation was upheld, although the Court of Appeal differed from the County Court’s reasoning.

2. Manchester County Court: His Honour Judge Platts allowed the passenger’s appeal and awarded compensation, holding that the Article 5(3) extraordinary-circumstances exception in Regulation (EC) No. 261/2004 did not apply.

3. Stockport County Court: District Judge Dignan held that the unexpected and unforeseeable defect was an extraordinary circumstance and that the passenger was not entitled to compensation.