La sentencia Sousa Rodriguez: una cancelacion retrasada o un retraso cancelado

Abstract

The criterion used by the Court of Justice of the European Union in order to decide whether a flight can be considered cancelled (‘the itinerary criterion’) suffers from shortcomings. The question «how is the flight executed?» is more effective. The criterion suggested in this paper (‘the execution criterion’) implies that a replacement flight has to be treated in the same way as the original flight. When the replacement flight suffers a delay, three limits must be taken into account. The replacement flight must be considered as ‘normally’ executed if it departs no more than one hour before, and arrives at its final destination less than two hours after, the original scheduled time. If the limit of two hours’ delay is breached, the ‘delayed’ flights regime must be applied. If the replacement flight suffers a delay of at least five hours, the ‘cancellation’ regime must be applied.

http://dx.doi.org/10.15304/dereito.24.2.2749