The Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) has ruled that in case that passengers are entitled to reimbursement of the price of their ticket under Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, then such price comprises also the commission of the intermediary, if the air carrier knew about the commission.
The case involved tickets bought by a passenger through the website opodo.de to fly with his family with Vueling Airlines from Hamburg (DE) to Faro (PT) via Barcelona (ES). The claimant paid € 1108.88 for the tickets, yet opodo.de transferred € 1031.88 to the airline, the rest of the amount being its commission. The flight was cancelled and the claimant asked the full amount he had been invoiced to be returned. Nevertheless, the airline transferred only the amount it had itself received from the website, excluding the website’s commission.
The CJEU referred to the wording of Art. 8(1)(a) of the Regulation, ‘reimbursement … of the full cost of the ticket at the price at which it was bought’ and indicated that the commission of an agent is part of the ticket price. Nevertheless, to strike a balance of interests between passengers and airlines, the Court observed, it must be accepted that the airline has no duty to return the agent’s commission, if it had no knowledge that such commission had been added to the ticket price.
You can find the judgment here.
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