CJEU CASE C-76/23, REIMBURSEMENT IN TRAVEL VOUCHERS 3. THE QUESTION FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING An appeal was lodged with the Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main. The court questioned the scope of the concept of "passenger's written agreement" («mit schriftlichem Einverständnis") contained in Art 7(3) to assess whether the reimbursement modalities imposed by the airline through its website comply with this provision. The requirement for a written agreement from the passenger may seem an additional requirement to protect the passenger against a premature and ill-considered option for a travel voucher, a modality the European legislator considered less favourable for the consumer. However, from a second perspective, the fact that a written agreement is required from the passenger, in the form of consent transmitted by post or electronically, is likely to extend reimbursement deadlines while simultaneously increasing the burden associated with the administrative management of these refunds for air carriers. Therefore, according to the Landgericht Frankfurt am Main, an online reimbursement procedure in several stages, such as the one described in the main procedure, may be considered to comply with the requirements of Art 7(3). The Landgericht Frankfurt am Main has suspended the proceedings and submitted the following question to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling: “Must Article 7(3) of [Regulation No 261/2004] be interpreted as meaning that a signed agreement of the passenger on the reimbursement of the cost of the ticket with a travel voucher within the meaning of the first indent of Article 8(1)(a) of [that regulation] exists where the passenger selects a voucher of this type on the website of the operating air carrier to the exclusion of a subsequent refund of the cost of the ticket in monetary form and receives it by email, while reimbursement of the cost of the ticket in monetary form is only possible after first contacting the operating air carrier?”. According to the CJEU, the structure of Article 7(3) indicates that the ticket is primarily refunded in cash or electronic payments, while refunds in the form of travel vouchers are presented as a subsidiary type of refund, as they are subject to the additional requirement of a “written passenger agreement”. Regulation 261/2004 does not define what should be understood as a written agreement in the articles or its twenty-two recitals. Unlike Directive 2015/2302, no recitals here provide essential support for interpretation. According to the Luxembourg court, the concept of "agreement" is understood as free and informed consent according to its usual meaning. Therefore, Article 7(3) requires the passenger's free and informed consent to obtain the ticket reimbursement through a travel voucher.
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