The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that pets on flights can now be classified as baggage. This means that if an airline loses your pet during an international flight in Europe, it isn’t required to pay you more compensation than it would for a lost bag.
The ruling came after a Spanish judge referred a case to the ECJ involving an incident from October 2019 where a dog escaped its pet-carrier and was lost at Buenos Aires airport on route to Barcelona with Iberia, Spain’s flag carrier airline. With the dog never found, the owner sought €5,000 (around $5,745) in compensation for “non-material damage”, triggering a six-year-long court case.
The EU ruling limits the liability for airlines that lose animals on international flights.
getty
While Iberia admitted liability for losing the pet, it argued the size of the claim under EU rules exceeded the liability for lost baggage, and because the owners had made no special declaration as to the crate’s contents, they couldn’t make a claim against them.
While small pets are allowed in the cabin, larger pets as in this case are required to travel in the hold of the plane. The court concluded that the 1999 Montreal Convention governing airline liability for baggage applies to every item carried in the hold—and that includes pets.
Despite the fact that EU laws recognize animals as sentient beings, the ECJ, based in Luxembourg, pinpointed the fact that the Montreal Convention focuses solely on material compensation for lost or damaged items.
In a statement the ECJ said, “The court finds that pets are not excluded from the concept of ‘baggage’. Even though the ordinary meaning of the word ‘baggage’ refers to objects, this alone does not lead to the conclusion that pets fall outside that concept.
“According to the Montreal Convention, other than carriage of cargo, aircrafts perform international carriage of persons and baggage. The concept of ‘persons’ corresponds to that of ‘passengers’, with the result that a pet cannot be considered to be a ‘passenger’.
“Consequently, for the purposes of air travel, a pet falls within the concept of ‘baggage’ and the compensation for the damage resulting from the loss of a pet is subject to the liability rules for baggage.”
Traveling with pets is more common in the U.S. than in Europe.
getty
The judgment noted that an airline’s liability for lost baggage could be determined by a special declaration on its contents prior to traveling—something that didn’t happen in this case. Typically, this special declaration is designed for declaring inanimate objects rather than animals.
The result is that under compensation caps determined by the Montreal Convention, Iberia was not obligated to pay the full compensation claim and instead purportedly paid just €1,578.82. The lawyer for the claimant argued against the ruling, stating that “no airline in the world will accept a special declaration of value” regarding a pet in the hold of a plane.
“I believe that a great opportunity has been missed to continue raising awareness of the rights of animals and the people who care for them. Ultimately, the ECJ considers that pets do not deserve special or enhanced legal protection compared to a simple suitcase.”
If you plan on flying with an animal within Europe, make sure you’re aware of the regulations, your, and your animal’s, rights.
