ANSWER · UK 261 AND EC 261
The airline blamed a staff shortage. Can I still claim?
Whose staff matters. A shortage of the airline's own crew is not an extraordinary circumstance: the Court of Justice held on 11 May 2023 that unexpected crew absence, even a sudden death, stays inside Art. 5(3), and the UK Supreme Court reached the same result on crew sickness in Lipton in 2024. A shortage of the airport operator's staff can qualify, per the 16 May 2024 Touristic Aviation judgment.
REVIEWED AGAINST RULE SET V6 AND THE CITED PRIMARY SOURCES · UPDATED 7 AUGUST 2026
The airline's own people
Crew planning and working hours are the airline's business, so absences among its own staff, from a sick captain (Lipton) to the death of a co-pilot two hours before departure (TAP Portugal), do not excuse compensation. The same logic felled the wildcat strike defence in Krüsemann.
Other people's people
In Touristic Aviation the baggage loading crews belonged to the airport operator, and the Court accepted their shortage may be extraordinary, provided the failure was a general one and the airline had no effective control, for instance no realistic option of hiring another handler with capacity.
The arithmetic can decide it
Where only part of a delay is excusable, courts subtract it. In the Touristic Aviation reference, stripping the 2 hours 13 minutes of airport loading delay would have dropped the airline's own share of a 3 hour 49 minute delay below the 3 hour line.
THE JUDGMENTS BEHIND THIS ANSWER
SOURCES
- Joined Cases C-156/22 to C-158/22 TAP Portugal v flightright and Myflyright, judgment of 11 May 2023 (ECLI:EU:C:2023:393) · EUR-Lex · checked 7 August 2026
- Case C-405/23 Touristic Aviation Services v Flightright, judgment of 16 May 2024 (ECLI:EU:C:2024:408) · EUR-Lex · checked 7 August 2026
- Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, Art. 5(3) · EUR-Lex · checked 7 August 2026
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