INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM, TRAVEL AND HOSPITALITY LAW Keywords: Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, compensation, extraordinary circumstances, technical failures, flight delay, hidden design defects, reasonable measures. 1. INTRODUCTION The Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 February 2004 establishing common rules on compensation and assistance to passengers in the event of denied boarding and of cancellation or long delay of flights, continues to be interpreted by the Court of Justice of the European Union. Two new rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union were rendered on 13 June 2024, once again, on the concept of "extraordinary circumstances" as per Article 5(3) of Regulation which provides that : 1. In case of cancellation of a flight, the passengers concerned shall […] (c) have the right to compensation by the operating air carrier in accordance with Article 7, unless: (i) they are informed of the cancellation at least two weeks before the scheduled time of departure; or (ii) they are informed of the cancellation between two weeks and seven days before the scheduled time of departure and are offered re-routing allowing them to depart no more than two hours before the scheduled time of departure and to reach their final destination less than four hours after the scheduled time of arrival; or (iii) they are informed of the cancellation less than seven days before the scheduled time of departure and are offered re-routing, allowing them to depart no more than one hour before the scheduled time of departure and to reach their final destination less than two hours after the scheduled time of arrival. [...] 3. An operating air carrier shall not be liable to pay the compensation provided for in Article 7 if it can prove that the cancellation was due to extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. [...] " As a reminder, this obligation to compensate passengers in the event of flight cancellation applies in the same way in case of flight delays since the Sturgeon ruling, which held in principle that a delay of more than three hours on arrival in relation to the time initially scheduled is equivalent to
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