Flight cancellation due to strike

Regulation (EC) No. 261/2004 stipulates that airlines are not obliged to pay compensation if it may prove that a flight cancellation was due to an emergency situation that could not have been avoided even if all suitable measures had been taken. Such conditions may especially arise in the event of political instability, poor weather conditions, security risks, unforeseen deficiencies that may affect the safety of the flight, as well as strikes.

In the airline business, strikes are frequent events that may more or less affect the air transport and cause inconvenience, such as delays and flight cancellations. With regard to the fact that Regulation does not regulate strikes as an emergency situation, i.e. if and when the strike is deemed an emergency situation, the decisions taken by the EU Court, national courts as well as the positions of the national supervisory authorities are important.

The positions of EU countries with regard to the strike as an emergency situation differ. In most countries in the EU, a strike is deemed an emergency situation, while in others the legislation stipulates, or it is understood from the case law, that an assessment as to whether there is an emergency situation or not should observe the 'origin` of the strike or the reasons for it. In most of these countries, for example, strikes by airline personnel are not deemed emergency situations, but events within the scope of the airline`s supervision. The opposite is true in the case of strikes by external personnel, such as flight dispatchers.

In Germany, the cancellation of a flight due to a strike is classified as an emergency situation. In the judgement of 21 August 2012, the German Federal Court of Justice decided that the union's call for a strike, notwithstanding that it referred to airline employees, had an external impact on the airline and was as such not a part of normal operations. Such situations usually cannot be controlled by the airline, since a decision to strike taken outside the company's operation is taken by the personnel, i.e. union members. In this case, the airline had to change the flight schedule, which caused cancellations or postponements of some flights. The court established that the airline had used all means available to reduce the negative effects, and was thus exempt from the obligation to pay compensation to passengers whose flight had been cancelled.

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