In its judgment delivered on 17 September 2015 in van der Lans v. KLM, the Court of Justice of the EU held that the ‘extraordinary circumstances’ defence (which relieves a carrier of its obligation to pay compensation in respect of a cancelled or delayed flight under Regulation (EC) 261/2004 (hereinafter the ‘Regulation’)) does not apply in the case of an unexpected technical problem which is not attributable to poor maintenance and was not discovered during routine maintenance.
Air and Space Law