Brussels – When a flight is cancelled, and the ticket for that flight was purchased on third-party portals other than the airline, the carrier must not only refund the ticket price but also the intermediation costs. This was established by the Court of Justice of the EU, which, in its ruling, introduced a new legal element in favour of passengers for their compensation in the event of disruption. The specific case concerns a ticket purchased through the online travel agency Opodo for a KLM-operated route. When the return flight was cancelled, KLM refunded the ticket price, but excluded the intermediary fees from the compensation.
According to the judges in Luxembourg, when an airline agrees to allow an intermediary to issue flight tickets in its name and on its behalf, “it can be presumed that it is necessarily aware of that intermediary’s commercial practice of charging a commission.” Since the commission in question is an “unavoidable” component of the price of the flight ticket, the Court of Justice of the EU considers that “it must be regarded as authorised by the airline” and, for this reason, “the airline must reimburse the commission” paid by the customer.
Furthermore, the Luxembourg judges continue, “it is not necessary” for the airline to know the exact amount of the intermediary commission. Otherwise, the protection of passengers provided for by the EU legislator “would be weakened and the use of an intermediary’s services would be less attractive.”
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
