The European Court of Justice's verdict that RyanAir must compensate all passengers booked on its cancelled flights during the Icelandic volcano episode appears to fly in the face of all reason and common sense. How did they reach their verdict?
Under normal principles of English and Scottish (yes, they are different) jurisprudence, there are things which are nobody's fault and therefore come under the undeserved heading of " Act of God". They do occur. No earthly person could have intervened to make them happen or to prevent them. Volcanos would reasonably fall into that catageory. Nobody therefore is liable for the consequences. Under this heading therefore Mr O'Leary and others should have been able to sleep soundly.
The airlines were not resposible for the volcanic activity . The next question is whether that having happened, they did or did not do anything to make its effects worse.Clearly not.Far from voluntarily stopping flying through areas which might be affected by airborne ash ,they were specifically prohibited from doing so by the UK and European aeronautical authorities. If there was any error of judgement which made the grounding unnecessary or too restrictive, then that should logically be the responsibility of those who made the decision, not the airlines,who complied with it at least until it clear that much of the ban was unnecessary and threatened to fly anyway unless the authorities reconsidered their position,- which they then did. If anyone was responsible for the lengthy period of flight cancellations it was the therefore the authorities,not the airlines.
It should therefore have been game, set and match to Mr O ' Leary. But it wasn't . The claimants then took their case to the European Court of Justice, the sump for all cases and claims which have failed in the national courts of any EU member state. As each of the nations has its own legal system developed over centuries and many are very different from each other there is no overall European law other than such has been created by the EU beaurocracy itself. Much of this is about human rights which means that any case before ECJ will primarily be held up against the light for conflicts between the original state verdicts and the demands of these .The verdicts of individual state laws are therefore tested against others created above and outside. Anyone who talks about the supremacy of the laws and parliaments of the sovereign member states of the EU has not understood the reality.
Here is where the divergence and opportunity for the supremacy of a different concept occurs. EU laws, such as they are, lean heavily towards the concept that somebody must be responsible for almost anything and that as result somebody else must be eligible for compensation if things go wrong for them. Accidents don't happen.
That meant that someone other than the deity had to be responsible for the passengers being "stranded" ( As we noted at the time, many British residents actually weren't. They appear to have been unaware that they were somewhere in Europe through which ran roads and railways to English Channel ports whence ferries shuttled to their home island). The aviation authorities of Europe, being organs of governments of member states , were not expected to own or pay up so who else other than the airlines could carry the can?
That then appears to be how the decision was reached and to that's how the logic , even though fundamentally flawed, went. People have been inconvenienced. Someone, other than the state or states, has to be held responsible and pay. No wonder Mr O'Leary was shaking his head at being landed with the bill while the organsation(s) which told the airlines not to fly were absolved of blame or responsibity for the results of their acts or omissions.
Footnote: A UK government official on TV news shrugged off the liability of airlines for delays regardless of circumstances , describing the cost to the airlines (already over £20 million to RyanAir alone even before the court case) in this particular instance as being "small beer" in the overall context of their revenue/profits. He clearly had no idea how narrow the margins, if any in many cases, of the industry are and how the ruling could put some carriers, small and large,"customers"of his department, out of business.
