A passenger falling ill on an aircraft constitutes an extraordinary circumstance
This judgment serves as a further illustration of the concept of an “extraordinary circumstance”: a passenger’s sudden illness.
Since the 2009 Sturgeon ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) — which extended the right to compensation (originally applicable to flight cancellations under Article 7 of European Regulation No. 261/2004) to air passengers experiencing a delay of 3 hours or more upon arrival at their final destination — disputes before the courts of EU Member States have increased. An air carrier may be exempted from paying this compensation if it can establish the existence of an “extraordinary circumstance” (pursuant to Article 5.3 of the same regulation).
The ruling by the Court of Cassation discussed here (Cass. 1st Civ., 23 Sept. 2026, No. 25-14.563) provides a further illustration of this concept of “extraordinary circumstance” in the context of a passenger having to be disembarked due to a medical emergency.
In this case, a passenger had booked a flight that included a layover. At the departure of the first leg of the journey, another passenger suffered a medical emergency and had to be disembarked. The passenger in question, who arrived at her final destination more than 5 hours late after missing her connecting flight, sought payment of the 261 regulation compensation from the airline. She argued that a medical emergency affecting a passenger — necessitating his disembarkation — did not constitute an “extraordinary circumstance” that would exempt the airline from its obligation to provide fixed-sum compensation to other passengers for the resulting flight delay or cancellation.
It should be outlined that, under European Regulation No. 261/2004, an operating air carrier is not required to pay the compensation provided for in Article 7 if it can prove that the cancellation was caused by “extraordinary circumstances” that could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJUE) defines such circumstances as events which, by their nature or origin, are not inherent to the normal exercise of the air carrier’s activity and are beyond its actual control. Both of these conditions must be met.
In the present case, the Court of Cassation held that a passenger’s sudden illness — which necessitated his disembarkation — is not inherent to the normal exercise of an air carrier’s activity and lies beyond the carrier’s actual control.
The Court of Cassation thus upheld the lower court’s decision to reject the passenger’s claim for compensation. The lower court had correctly established that the delay was attributable to the illness of another passenger and that the airline had no means of preventing such a delay. It further noted that the airline had arranged for the passenger to be rerouted as quickly as possible.
Valérie Augros