SPAIN Trends and Developments Contributed by: Alfonso López-Ibor, Pablo Henriquez de Luna and Pedro Echeguren, Lopez-Ibor DPM
Rules for the Determination of the Jurisdiction for the Examination of Lawsuits Concerning Airline-Related Disputes in International Commercial Flights of Passengers: A Guide to Where to Litigate Introduction Who has not booked a flight between two coun- tries and, much to their disappointment, found out that what was initially planned as a pleasant family holiday or an otherwise uneventful busi - ness trip, was marred by a negative experience at the airport? Whether it be a delay in the departure, a cancella- tion or a loss or material damage to the luggage, unfortunately, many passengers are troubled by these types of annoyances and, more often than not, by the subsequent and unjustified refusal on the part of the airline to provide them with the compensation they are legally entitled to. In view of this reluctance by the companies to fulfil their obligations and compensate their cus- tomers, as a last resort, the affected passenger will be faced with the choice of filing a lawsuit, since this will be the only viable option for them to obtain the much sought-after compensation and, at least, partially alleviate all the nuisances incurred. Given that these flights present a notable inter- national component, as the nationality and places of domicile of the passenger and the airline, as well as the points of departure and arrival usually correspond to different countries, the question that naturally first arises is where to sue. For instance, if a British passenger were to take a flight from Spain to Italy operated by a French airline, the flight became delayed and the airline refused to indemnify its customer willing- ly, where should they bring the legal actions to assert their legitimate rights? Before the courts
of the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy or those of France? The determination of the country whose courts are competent to examine the case (a term legal- ly known as “jurisdiction”) is a crucial matter, since the filing of a lawsuit before a country lack- ing this jurisdiction will likely result in the court outright dismissing the case ex officio, or, if the court clerks and officers somehow fail to notice this circumstance and the opposing attorneys are sufficiently alert, in the airline’s lawyers filing a challenge of jurisdiction with a very high pros- pect of success that will most certainly result in the termination of the proceedings. At first, the determination of the jurisdiction is no easy task, since it involves navigating through several extensive, intricate and highly technical norms overlapping at three different levels: inter- national, EU and national. Yet, once these rules of jurisdiction have been properly understood and mastered, the determination of the interna - tionally competent courts becomes a clear-cut and straightforward path that will merely require the answering of a few questions regarding the parties’ places of domicile and residence and the flight’s itinerary. The purpose of the present article is to offer a brief outline of these rules of jurisdiction, from the Spanish legal perspective, on how to cor- rectly determine the internationally competent courts to settle airline-related disputes in inter- national flights (between two or more different countries) and, therefore, providing passengers and attorneys specialised in the protection of consumers with a useful and definitive guide on how to ascertain the countries where they could bring litigation against the airlines, without risk- ing an outright dismissal.
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