In the case of a claim for reimbursement for delayed flights, the Ryanair clause which assigns cases to the Irish Court applies. An exception to the rules on jurisdiction that is possible if the passenger, when purchasing the ticket online, ticks the box with the point and click system. The United Sections, with the sentence nr 8802/2025, rejected the appeal of a couple who had asked Ryanair € 517,00 as pecuniary compensation and transfer costs. The request was based on the long delay of a flight from Alghero/Treviso, rerouted to Venice. A request accepted by the Justice of the Peace and rejected by the Court, then ended up to the attention of the United Sections.
The Court, while bringing the case within the scope of EU law (Regulation 261/04), prized the conduct that had allowed the derogation, that is the purchase of the online ticket, comparable to the written form, with the acceptance of the clause, according to which disputes relating to the signed contract should be settled exclusively before the Irish court. A “pact” valid for the bond resulting from the contract signed, which could be downloaded by opening a link. The travellers’ request to apply the Montreal Convention of 28 May 1999, ratified in Italy in 2004, which does not allow derogations from the criteria of jurisdiction, which in the case under consideration would have been national, is also rejected for two reasons.
The Convention covers only international transport and not domestic flights which do not provide for stopovers in other member states. The second reason is that the Convention applies only to claims for additional damage and not to claims for compensation. It also excludes the possibility of appealing to Regulation 1215/2012, which introduces a special rule in case of contracts concluded by consumers, in favor of the latter with regard to competence.
However, the United Sections point out that this rule applies only to transport contracts which provide for services combined with accommodation at a global price. For the Supreme Council, therefore, the “preferential” treatment for consumer protection has to be regarded as <<a valid derogation clause from the ordinary criteria for the distribution of disputes>>. In particular, the written form requirement was respected, since the derogation was contained in the general conditions of the contract available on the web.