C-405/23 · 2024 · EC 261
Touristic Aviation Services Limited v Flightright GmbH
A shortage of the airport operator's baggage loading staff may be an extraordinary circumstance. The Court held on 16 May 2024 that where loading is the airport operator's responsibility its understaffing can sit outside the carrier's control, but the airline must still prove it could not avoid the delay, for instance by engaging another handler with spare capacity, and national courts decide whether the failure was a general one.
REVIEWED AGAINST RULE SET V6 AND THE CITED PRIMARY SOURCES · UPDATED 7 AUGUST 2026
- COURT
- Court of Justice of the European Union (Ninth Chamber)
- CASE NUMBER
- C-405/23
- JUDGMENT
- 16 May 2024
- CITATION
- ECLI:EU:C:2024:408
What the case was about
A Cologne Bonn to Kos flight on 4 July 2021 arrived 3 hours and 49 minutes late.
Of that, 2 hours and 13 minutes came from slow baggage loading by the airport operator's understaffed team; the rest came from the preceding flight and from weather.
Flightright, suing as assignee of the passengers, brought the claim before the Cologne courts, which asked whether the staffing shortage excused the airline.
What it changed
- Staff shortages now split by whose staff are short: the airline's own crew stays inside Art. 5(3) after TAP, the airport operator's ground staff can fall outside it.
- If the excusable part of a delay drops the airline's own share below three hours, the compensation claim can fail arithmetic first.
- Effective control is the test: an airline that can direct the airport operator, or hire a different handler, loses the defence.
SOURCES
- 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