Montreal convention
The Montreal Convention, formally the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air , sets out airlines liabilities for passengers and their baggage.It is a treaty adopted by a Diplomatic meeting of ICAO member states in 1999 to amend important provisions of the regime of Warsaw Convention regarding compensation for the victims of air disasters.
The Convention re-establishes urgently needed uniformity and predictability of rules relating to the international carriage of passengers, baggage and cargo.
It applies to international travel only. But many countries have similar legislation for domestic travel. And it applies for any journey within the EU (including domestic journeys within a single Member State), because its provisions have been replicated in EU legislation.
Most journeys by air will come under the Montreal Convention, but there may be some journeys where different liability regimes apply.
The Montreal Convention covers liability for:
- death or injury to passengers
- delay baggage (loss, damage or delay).
Under the Montreal Convention, air carriers are strictly liable for proven damages up to 100,000 Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). For damages above 100,000 SDR's, the airline must show the accident that caused injury or death was not due to their negligence or was attributable to the negligence of a third party.
Montreal convention was brought about mainly to amend liabilities to be paid to families for death or injury whilst on board an aircraft.
Claims for death or injury are best managed with by lawyers with experience in personal injury cases. But if you do try to go it alone, remember that the Convention has a two-year time limit for starting court action. Don’t let the airline or its insurers string you along in correspondence past the two-year deadline.
The two-year deadline also applies to bringing action for claims for delay or for baggage problems. But, in practice, these claims are less likely to result in court action, not least because the Convention places limits on airlines liability in these areas. The limit for claims for delay is 4,150 Special Drawing Rights per passenger, and for baggage it is fixed amount 1,000 SDRs per passenger (the amount in the Warsaw Convention is based on weight of the baggage)..
These are maximum limits: claims are assessed individually on the basis of the “damage occasioned by delay in the carriage by air of passengers, baggage or cargo” or of the “damage sustained in the event of the destruction or loss of" , or damage ”to baggage”.
EU countries jointly ratified the convention on 29 April 2004, and it came into force in those countries on 28 June 2004.