February 2026 at the Court of Justice of the European Union – Update

Advocate General Spielmann’s opinion in case C-876/24, Vueling Airlines (Juridiction compétente en cas de contrat en ligne de transport aérien national) will be published on Thursday 26th. The Court of First Instance No 1, Fuenlabrada, Spain, has referred the following questions to the Court of Justice:

First. Must Article 3(1) of Regulation (EC) No 2027/97 [of the Council of 9 October 1997 on air carrier liability in respect of the carriage of passengers and their baggage (OJ 1997 L 285, p. 1), as amended by Regulation (EC) No 889/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 May 2002 (OJ 2002 L 140, p. 2)] be interpreted as meaning that the liability of a Community air carrier in respect of the carriage of passengers and their baggage is also to be governed by Article 33 of the Montreal Convention [Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air, done at Montreal on 28 May 1999 and approved on behalf of the European Community by Council Decision 2001/539/EC of 5 April 2001 (OJ 2001 L 194, p. 38] in the case of carriage within a Member State of the European Union?

Second. May Article 33(1) of the Montreal Convention be interpreted as meaning that the place where the carrier has a place of business through which the air transport contract has been entered into could be the principal and permanent residence of the passenger, if the contract was entered into online?

Third. Must Article 33(1) of the Montreal Convention be interpreted as meaning that the place where the carrier has a place of business through which the contract has been entered into refers to the place in which the principal obligation of carriage by air was contracted for and not the place in which the ancillary service, from which the carrier’s liability arises, was contracted for, if the latter place differs from the former?

At stake is, therefore, whether Article 33 of the Montreal Convention applies to air transport within a single Member State, regulating the allocation of territorial jurisdiction between courts within the same Member State. Also, whether, in the case of an online sales contract, the claimant’s domicile is to be considered as the place where the air carrier has an establishment through which the contract was concluded.

The main proceedings concern I.G.V., on the one hand, and the carrier Vueling Airlines, S.A. (‘Vueling’, an air carrier having its registered office in Viladecans Barcelona), on the other, in relation to a claim for compensation for the damage caused by the loss of baggage during carriage by air.

I.G.V. entered into an air transport contract with Vueling, for a flight from Madrid airport to Barcelona airport, on 8 November 2023. The baggage was lost during that this leg of her journey. Unable to afford to wait for the luggage in Barcelona any longer, I.G.V. took a second, connecting flight to Rome. I.G.V. has not provided documentation, nor added any other information, regarding the contract for the second flight, from Barcelona to Rome (or regarding the return flights to Madrid), and therefore the national court assumes that there was no ‘international carriage’, within the meaning of Article 1 of the Montreal Convention, and that the relevant carriage is national.

I.G.V. entered into the air transport contract online, from her home in Fuenlabrada (Spain). As a service in addition to the flight, she paid, in person and at the Madrid airport itself, to check in the baggage that was later lost.

The case has been assigned to a chamber of five judges, with M. Fenger reporting .