The High Court has dismissed Ryanair DAC’s judicial review challenge to a determination requiring it to compensate 10 passengers whose flights were cancelled during strike action in July 2018. The court found no manifest error in the Commission for Aviation Regulation’s decision that the strikes did not qualify as extraordinary circumstances exempting the airline from compensation.
The regulator’s determination, issued on 31 May 2019, confirmed directions made on 15 February 2019. Those directions required compensation for five passengers affected by a cancellation on 12 July 2018 and five affected by a cancellation on 20 July 2018. Ryanair had obtained leave to bring judicial review proceedings in July 2019, seeking to quash the determination.
Under Article 5(3) of the EU Air Passenger Rights Regulation, an airline is not obliged to pay compensation if it proves that a cancellation was caused by extraordinary circumstances that could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. The judgment said the test required the airline to establish that the event was not inherent in the normal exercise of its activity, was beyond its actual control, and could not have been avoided through reasonable measures.
Ryanair argued that the strikes differed from the “wildcat strike” considered by the Court of Justice of the European Union in Krüsemann. It said the dispute at issue followed a union letter of demand dated 17 May 2018, after which Ryanair proposed mediation and the union said its demands had to be met or strike action would follow. Ryanair also argued that Krüsemann applied only to wildcat strikes.
The Commission maintained that the EU case law covered employee strikes generally, subject to case-by-case assessment, and that the origin of a strike did not determine whether passengers were entitled to compensation.
Justice Miriam O’Regan concluded that disputes between an airline and some of its staff, including disputes involving a union, fell within the ordinary conflicts airlines may face. She also found that the Krüsemann judgment supported the conclusion that the dispute was within the airline’s control. Since Ryanair had to satisfy both parts of the extraordinary-circumstances test, it failed on that issue.
The court therefore did not examine whether the cancellations could have been avoided if reasonable measures had been taken. It also did not determine Ryanair’s argument under Article 28 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, finding it unnecessary in light of the result. The judge declined to refer questions to the CJEU and held that the regulator’s decision disclosed no manifest error.