Air Europa will have to pay 1,800 euros to passengers from the Balearic Islands for a 6-hour delay

PalmThe Provincial Court of the Balearic Islands has ordered the airline Air Europa to compensate three passengers with €1,800 for the more than six-hour delay of their Lima-Madrid flight, the court reported. The ruling partially upholds the appeal of the affected passengers, who claimed €3,600 for two flights on April 3 and 5. The first flight was canceled, and the second was delayed by more than three hours. The passengers argued that the aircraft, after taking off and circling for approximately an hour, should have been canceled after just one hour. Two days later, they were rebooked on another flight with the same airline, which was delayed by six and a half hours. The airline explained the cancellation as an "exceptional circumstance" because a bird strike during takeoff damaged the right engine and necessitated "positioning equipment from Madrid to put the aircraft back into service." However, the airline made no mention of the reason for the delay of the second flight. An initial lower court ruling dismissed the claim, concluding that the company could not be held responsible for negligence or lack of due diligence. In the Provincial Court's ruling, the court found it proven that the damage was caused by a bird strike, an exceptional circumstance that exonerates the company because it is "a circumstance beyond the airline's control, or at least, there is no evidence to suggest that this incident is frequent at the airport." "We find no means by which the airline could have avoided the impact," the ruling states. However, the judges questioned whether the repair time was "excessive," raising doubts about whether the defect could have been repaired more quickly, given that the defendant company lacked the necessary infrastructure in Peru, and whether other technicians could have been called in to open the aircraft more efficiently.

"There is no evidence, not even circumstantial, of excessive time spent on such repairs, in the context of the necessary operational safety of the aircraft once repaired," therefore, "given this situation, it is reasonable to conclude that mandatory safety inspections of this aircraft were necessary, which resulted in the continuous operation."

Furthermore, the judges point out that, regarding the six-hour delay of the second flight, for which the airline has not presented any argument, the plaintiffs must be compensated for the "unjustified delay of more than three hours, once a new departure time for the aircraft was designated and the airline failed to adhere to it." The ruling will not be final and may be appealed to the Supreme Court.