In short: A bird strike is an extraordinary circumstance, but only the delay it caused is excused, and needless extra safety checks by the airline’s own expert are not.
| Case | Marcela Pešková and Jiří Peška v Travel Service a.s. |
|---|---|
| Citation | C-315/15 |
| Court | Court of Justice of the EU (Third Chamber) |
| Date | |
| Full text | EUR-Lex (Publications Office of the European Union) |
The facts
The applicants booked a Travel Service flight from Burgas (Bulgaria) to Ostrava (Czech Republic). It took place on 10 August 2013 and arrived 5 hours and 20 minutes late. The aircraft was flying a circuit: Prague – Burgas – Brno – Burgas – Ostrava.
On the Prague–Burgas leg a technical failure in a valve was found; the repair took 1 hour and 45 minutes. On landing in Brno the aircraft, according to the airline, collided with a bird. Checks found no damage, but the owner of the aircraft did not accept the authorisation of the firm that had done them, so Travel Service flew in its own technician by private aircraft, who checked again and found no traces. The passengers each claimed about CZK 6,825 (around €250); a Prague district court upheld the claim, and the court hearing the airline’s appeal referred questions.
The question
Is a bird strike an extraordinary circumstance? What reasonable measures must the airline take, and what happens when a delay has several causes, only some of them extraordinary?
What the Court ruled
- A collision between an aircraft and a bird falls within the concept of extraordinary circumstances.
- A cancellation or delay is not due to extraordinary circumstances where it results from the airline using an expert of its choice to repeat safety checks after a bird strike, when those checks had already been carried out by an expert authorised under the applicable rules.
- The reasonable measures an airline must take to reduce the risk of bird strikes include control measures against the presence of birds, provided they can actually be taken by the airline, do not require intolerable sacrifices and were shown to have been taken for the flight concerned.
- Where a delay of three hours or more is caused partly by extraordinary circumstances and partly by other events, the delay caused by the extraordinary event is deducted from the total delay to decide whether compensation is payable.
Paraphrased from the operative part of the judgment. The exact wording is in the full text.
What it means for you
If the airline blames a bird strike, ask how long that event actually delayed your flight. Time lost to unrelated technical faults, or to repeat checks the airline chose to make, still counts against it.
If what is left after deducting the bird-strike delay is still three hours or more, compensation is due.
Read more: Extraordinary circumstances · Flight delay compensation · Bird strikes.
Status in the UK
Decided before the end of the Brexit transition period (11 pm on 31 December 2020), so it is assimilated EU case law in the UK. County courts and sheriff courts must follow it when they apply UK261; the UK Supreme Court and the appeal courts listed in the 2020 regulations (including the Court of Appeal in England and Wales) may depart from it.
How EU rulings apply after Brexit is explained on our case-law overview.
This is a plain-English summary written by our editorial team, not legal advice. Judgments turn on their facts, and later rulings can refine them. Before relying on a case in a dispute, read the full judgment or get advice.
Related cases
- LE v TAP – Unruly passengers, knock-on delays and re-routing
- Moens v Ryanair – Runway closed by a fuel spill is extraordinary
- Germanwings v Pauels – Runway debris damaging a tyre is extraordinary
- Krüsemann v TUIfly – Mass crew sick-out (“wildcat strike”) is not extraordinary
- van der Lans v KLM – Unexpected component failure is not extraordinary
- Siewert v Condor – Ground equipment hitting the aircraft is not extraordinary
Sources
- Judgment of the Court (Third Chamber), 4 May 2017, Case C-315/15, Pešková and Peška v Travel Service – EUR-Lex (Publications Office of the European Union)
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