Judgment;Summary — ECLI:EU:C:2025:12
Date: 2025-01-16
Language of the case: German
Court formation: Seventh Chamber
Subject matter: Transport
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Germany

Translation C-642/23 – 1 
Case C-642/23 
Request for a preliminary ruling 
Date lodged: 
26 October 2023 
Referring court: 
Landgericht Düsseldorf (Germany) 
Date of the decision to refer: 
16 October 2023 
Applicant: 
Flightright GmbH 
Defendant: 
Etihad Airways P.J.S.C. 
  
Landgericht Düsseldorf 
(Regional Court, Düsseldorf) 
Order 
In the case  
Flightright GmbH v Etihad Airways P.J.S.C. 
on 16 October 2023, 
the 22nd Civil Chamber of the Landgericht Düsseldorf (Regional Court, 
Düsseldorf) 
[…] 
made the following order: 
The proceedings are stayed. 
The following questions on the interpretation of EU law are referred to the Court 
of Justice of the European Union pursuant to Article 267(1)(b) and (3) TFEU: 
EN 
REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING OF 16. 10. 2023 – CASE C-642/23 
 
2  
1. 
Is Article 8(1)(a) in conjunction with Article 7(3) of the Air Passenger 
Rights Regulation to be interpreted as meaning that an effective signed 
agreement of the passenger to the reimbursement of ticket costs in the form 
of travel vouchers and credit notes exists where the passenger has set up an 
electronic customer account him or herself via the airline’s website to which 
the travel vouchers and credit notes are to be transferred without having 
confirmed his or her agreement to this type of reimbursement with a 
handwritten signature? 
2. 
If Question 1 is answered in the affirmative: Can a passenger revoke his or 
her agreement, once effectively given, to reimbursement of the ticket costs 
in the form of travel vouchers and credit notes and again demand 
performance to be effected by payment in cash if the airline does not 
subsequently credit the promised travel vouchers and credit notes to the 
customer account? 
Grounds: 
I. 
The assignor had a confirmed booking for the flight to be operated by the 
defendant on 7 September 2020 from Düsseldorf via Abu Dhabi (Flight No EY24) 
to Brisbane, Queensland (Flight No EY484). The booking included an ‘open-
return ticket’ (without a fixed booking of a return flight date). However, Flight 
No EY24 to be operated by the defendant was cancelled. The total price paid for 
the outward and return flight was EUR 1 189.00 per passenger. This was paid by 
the assignor to the tour operator ‘free4Travel’. 
After the tour operator filed for insolvency in July 2020 and did not reimburse the 
ticket costs, the assignor’s father contacted the defendant on the assignor’s behalf. 
The defendant offered to formally rebook the flights in order to generate a new 
IATA booking code. The assignor’s father agreed to this. The assignor’s father 
then telephoned an employee of the defendant’s service centre again and was 
promised that a credit of air miles redeemable for an Etihad flight to the value of 
the payment made (valid for two years), an additional booking of further air miles 
to the value of USD 400.00 and an additional credit of a further 5 000 Etihad 
Guest Miles would be made. For this purpose, each passenger was asked to create 
a corresponding Etihad Credit account, which they did. The fellow passenger was 
subsequently credited with the promised payments, but the assignor was not. 
In a letter dated 16 March 2021, the applicant, on behalf of the assignor’s father 
and the fellow passenger on the same booking with the booking code, informed 
the defendant that they were exercising their right of choice under Article 8(1)(a) 
FLIGHTRIGHT 
 
3 
of Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 and demanded full reimbursement of the ticket 
costs, for all the parts of the journey not made, within seven days. 
In a letter dated 13 August 2021, the assignor declared ‘as a precautionary 
measure’ that she ‘wished to be reimbursed for the ticket costs in accordance with 
the first indent of Article 8(1)(a) of the Air Passenger Rights Regulation’ and 
‘reassigned her claims for reimbursement to Flightright GmbH’ (the applicant in 
this case). 
In the present proceedings, the applicant is seeking reimbursement of the entire 
ticket price on the basis of an assigned right. 
The defendant disputes the applicant’s right to sue. 
The District Court dismissed the case on the grounds that the applicant could at 
most demand compensation for the costs incurred for the outward flight, which 
had not been quantified in the present case, even after the court had issued an 
order to that effect. 
The applicant lodged an appeal against this judgement at first instance in due form 
and time. 
In the appeal instance, the applicant now requests that the judgment of the 
Düsseldorf District Court of 29 April 2022 […] be amended and that the 
defendant be ordered to pay the applicant EUR 1 189.00 plus interest of five 
percentage points above the base rate since 24 March 2021. 
The defendant defends the judgment at first instance. 
II. 
The success of the proceedings depends crucially on the questions set out in the 
operative part of the present order. 
Detailed Account: 
1. 
The applicant could be entitled to reimbursement of the ticket costs in the amount 
of EUR 1 189.00 in accordance with Article 8(1)(a), Article 7(3) of the Air 
Passenger Rights Regulation. 
(a) According to Article 5, Article 8(1)(a) of the Air Passenger Rights 
Regulation, in the event of cancellation of a connecting flight, passengers are 
generally entitled to reimbursement of the ticket costs for the part or parts of the 
journey not made. In the case of a single booking, the ‘part or parts of the journey’ 
not made include – as here – both the outbound flight and the return flight ([…] 
see also European Commission Interpretative Guidelines of 10 June 2016, 
C(2016) 3502 final, under 4.b. and European Commission Interpretative 
REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING OF 16. 10. 2023 – CASE C-642/23 
 
4  
Guidelines – COVID-19 of 18 March 2020, C(2020) 1830 final, under 3.2.c.). The 
concept of ‘journey’ in the term ‘part or parts of the journey’ is to be understood 
more broadly than the concept of ‘flight’ within the meaning of the Air Passenger 
Rights Regulation. The concept of ‘flight’ must be interpreted as consisting 
essentially in an air transport operation, being as it were a ‘unit’ of such transport, 
performed by an air carrier which fixes its itinerary. The concept of ‘journey’, by 
contrast, attaches to the person of the passenger, who chooses his or her 
destination and makes his or her way there by means of flights operated by air 
carriers. A journey, which normally comprises ‘outward’ and ‘return’ legs, is 
determined above all by the personal and individual purpose of travelling (see 
European Court of Justice, judgment of 10 July 2008 – C-173/07 […]). The parts 
of the journey not made due to the cancellation of the first part of the outward 
flight therefore include both the remainder of the outward flight and the entire 
return flight. Contrary to the opinion of the District Court, it is therefore irrelevant 
that the applicant was unable to quantify the costs incurred for the outward flight. 
The claim is for reimbursement of the full ticket costs, in this case in the amount 
of EUR 1 189.00. 
(b) 
However, it is questionable whether the claim should be completely rejected 
because the assignor, represented by her father, had already exercised her right to 
choose reimbursement of the ticket costs vis-à-vis the defendant in accordance 
with Article 8(1) in conjunction with Article 7(3) of the Air Passenger Rights 
Regulation to the effect that payment should be made in the form of credit notes. 
According to the witness statement, the passenger created an Etihad Credit 
account after consulting with the defendant, to which a credit of air miles in the 
amount of the value of the payment made, additional air miles worth USD 400.00 
and a further 5 000 Etihad Guest Miles were to be credited. She set up this 
account herself electronically via the defendant’s website. This raises the question 
of whether the setting up [by a passenger] of an Etihad Credit account, to which, 
following corresponding communication and agreement between passengers and 
the operating airline, a credit of air miles in the amount of the value of the 
payment made, additional bookings of flight miles to the value of USD 400.00 
and an additional 5 000 Etihad Guest Miles should be credited, is to be understood 
as a ‘signed agreement’ given by passengers within the meaning of Article 7(3) of 
the Air Passenger Rights Regulation within the framework of an autonomous 
interpretation of the term under EU law or whether a passenger agreement 
requires a handwritten signature, as required by the national standard of Paragraph 
126 of the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (German Civil Code, ‘the BGB’). 
The Court of Justice of the European Union has held that Article 31(2) and (3) of 
the Montreal Convention must be interpreted as not precluding the requirement of 
being in a written form from being regarded as fulfilled in the case where, with the 
knowledge of the passenger, a representative of the air carrier records in writing 
the declaration of loss either on paper or electronically in the carrier’s information 
system, provided that that passenger can check the accuracy of the text of the 
FLIGHTRIGHT 
 
5 
complaint, as taken down in writing and entered in that system and can, where 
appropriate, amend or supplement it, or even replace it, before expiry of the period 
provided for in Article 31(2) of the Montreal Convention (see Court of Justice of 
the European Union, judgment of 12 April 2018 – C-258/16, paragraph 47). A 
handwritten signature is not required in this respect. However, it has not yet been 
clarified whether this broad interpretation can also be applied to the Air Passenger 
Rights Regulation. 
2. 
If the first question is answered to the effect that the ‘signed agreement’ does not 
require a handwritten passenger signature, but that where passengers create a user 
account themselves to receive the credits, this is also sufficient, the further 
question arises as to whether passengers can revoke their exercised right of choice 
and again demand reimbursement of the ticket costs in cash if, as here, the 
operating air carrier does not issue a credit despite a corresponding agreement. 
As far as can be seen, this question has also not yet been (conclusively) clarified 
by the EU courts, meaning that it had to be referred to the Court of Justice of the 
European Union for a preliminary ruling. 
III. 
[…]