Regulation 261/2004 on Air Passengers’ Rights has been amongst the most high-profile pieces of EU secondary legislation of the past years, generating controversial CJEU judgments, from ex parte IATA to Sturgeon. The Regulation has led to equally challenging decisions across the Member States, with domestic courts holding that a Regulation could not be relied upon by an individual claimant or even threatening outright to refuse an application of its provisions. The economic stakes are significant for passengers and airlines alike, and despite the European Commission’s recent publication of reform proposals controversies appear far from settled.
At the same time the Regulation should, according to the Treaty, have the same direct and general application in all the Member States of the Union. How, then, can this diversity be explained? What implications do they have for the EU’s regulatory strategy at large? This book brings together leading experts in the field to present a series of case studies from 10 different Member States as well as the extra-territorial application of Regulation 261 combined with high-level analysis from the perspectives of Aviation law and EU law.
