\n<\/p>\n
Pets on flights can be classified as baggage, the European court of justice has ruled, meaning airlines are not required to pay higher compensation if the animal is lost.<\/p>\n
The ECJ, Europe\u2019s highest court, was asked to intervene after a dog was lost during a journey from Buenos Aires to Barcelona, triggering a claim for losses from the owner.<\/p>\n
The court heard that the passenger and her mother checked into the flight with the dog, Mona, which was put in a special pet crate. However, the dog escaped while it was being taken to the plane and was never recovered, prompting a claim of \u20ac5,000 (\u00a34,340) for \u201cnon-material damage\u201d by the passenger, and a six-year court case.<\/p>\n
The airline involved, Iberia, accepted liability for the loss of the pet but not the size of the claim, arguing it exceeded the liability for lost luggage without any special declarations as to the crate\u2019s contents.<\/p>\n
The court said the passenger, a girl named Felic\u00edsima in documents, and her mother made no special declarations in relation to the baggage when checking it in and could not therefore make a claim for these losses.<\/p>\n
Pets are not often seen on European flights but are more common on transatlantic flights, with small dogs allowed in the cabin. Larger dogs, like the one at the centre of this lawsuit, are required to be placed in the hold by airlines that allow pet travel.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe dog got out of the carrier, started running near the plane and could not be recovered,\u201d the ECJ papers say.<\/p>\n
At an earlier court hearing in Spain, it was heard that, despite an intense campaign on social media launched by Felic\u00edsima, the dog has never been recovered.<\/p>\n
Felic\u00edsima said she would never give up her search, saying it was \u201ca disgrace\u201d if someone in Buenos Aires had taken her dog and claimed it as their own. \u201cWho has Mona, knowing that she is ours; knowing the pain we have felt?\u201d she asked in a Facebook post.The case sets a precedent for anyone travelling with pets who does not make a special declaration about the contents of the pet crate and the animal is lost.<\/p>\n
The girl\u2019s lawyer in Madrid, Carlos Villa Corta, said he disagreed with the arguments made in the Luxembourg court, claiming \u201cno airline in the world will accept a special declaration of value\u201d for a pet in the hold.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judge in the Spanish court referred the case to the ECJ to examine a matter of law at the heart of the case: whether the concept of baggage applied to the dog in the crate under the Montr\u00e9al convention, an international treaty setting out rules for airlines\u2019 liability for losses ranging from death to delays and lost cargo or baggage.<\/p>\n
The ECJ said: \u201cThe Montr\u00e9al convention clearly refers to persons and baggage. It therefore follows from the clear wording of this provision that the term \u2018persons\u2019 covers \u2018passengers\u2019, such that a pet cannot be considered a \u2018passenger\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt must therefore be considered that, for the purposes of air transport, a pet falls within the concept of \u2018baggage\u2019 and compensation for damage resulting from its loss during such transport is subject to the liability regime laid down for baggage.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judgment also noted that the liability of an airline for lost baggage could be determined by any special declaration on contents \u2013 which did not happen in this case.<\/p>\n
According to Spanish reports on the original case, the court ruled that because a special declaration about the animal was not made before the flight, Felic\u00edsima was entitled to only \u20ac1,578.82.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the ECJ said: \u201cThe fact that the protection of animal welfare is an objective of general interest recognised by the European Union does not prevent animals from being transported as \u2018baggage\u2019 and from being regarded as such for the purposes of the liability resulting from the loss of an animal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pets on flights can be classified as baggage, the European court of justice has ruled, meaning airlines are not required to pay higher compensation if the animal is lost. The ECJ, Europe\u2019s highest court, was asked to intervene after a dog was lost during a journey from Buenos Aires to Barcelona, triggering a claim for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[17129,17128,160,715,770,2282,1552,666,1168,2719],"class_list":{"0":"post-28916","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-baggage","9":"tag-classed","10":"tag-court","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-flights","13":"tag-justice","14":"tag-pets","15":"tag-rules","16":"tag-top","17":"tag-union"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}