CJEU CASE C-405/23, TOURISTIC AVIATION SERVICES LTD V FLIGHTRIGHT GMBH This concept of extraordinary circumstances, which allows the carrier to be exempted from its obligation to compensate passengers, is set out in recitals 14 and 15 of the Regulation. 14) As under the Montreal Convention, the obligations of operating air carriers should be limited or their liability exonerated in cases where an occurrence is due to extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. Such circumstances may arise, in particular, in the case of political instability, weather conditions incompatible with the operation of the flight concerned, safety risks, unforeseen failures which may affect the safety of the flight, and strikes affecting the operations of an operating air carrier. (15) Extraordinary circumstances should be considered to exist when an air traffic management decision concerning a specific aircraft on a specific day results in a significant delay, an overnight delay or the cancellation of one or more flights of this aircraft, even though all reasonable measures have been taken by the air carrier to avoid such delays or cancellations. 2. THE CONCEPT OF EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES Despite it has already given rise to numerous rulings of the Court, it is this concept of extraordinary circumstances that the Court was called upon to interpret once again in this case, between Touristic Aviation Services Limited ("TAS") and Flightright GmbH concerning the compensation sought by Flightright, to which passengers had assigned their rights, from TAS, in its capacity as operating carrier, following the long delay of a flight. In this case, on July 4, 2021, a flight operated by TAS from CologneBonn airport (Germany) to Kos airport (Greece) was delayed on arrival by 3 hours and 49 minutes. This delay was due to the fact that, firstly, the previous flight had already suffered a delay of 1 hour and 17 minutes due to a lack of staff responsible for passenger check-in; secondly, the loading of baggage onto the aircraft was slowed down due to the fact that the airport operator's staff, responsible for this service, were also in short supply, resulting in a further delay of 2
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