Overview
- The Court of Justice of the European Union held on March 4, 2026 (case T-656/24) that airlines cannot cite extraordinary circumstances when their own voluntary decisions cause delays.
- Judges said only a legally mandated obligation to wait for passengers could support the extraordinary-circumstances defense under EU passenger-rights law.
- The case stems from July 2022 at Cologne/Bonn, where overloaded security led European Air Charter to wait for unprocessed passengers, pushing that departure more than five hours late.
- The resulting schedule reshuffle delayed a Düsseldorf–Varna flight by over three hours, and two passengers seek €400 each in compensation.
- The Landgericht Düsseldorf must now determine whether the airline’s decision to wait was autonomous and then rule on the claims in line with the EU court’s interpretation.