Ladies and Gentlemen,

The company Air France,as you may be aware, is an airline offering passenger air transport in
major airports in France and around the world.

Mr. Krys Pagani bought from the airline a plane ticket to Washington D.C whose flight was
planned to be on December 27th 2013.

Unfortunately, departure conditions at the airport Charles de Gaulle were not optimal since the
flight was delayed by four hours.

The passengers boarded the plane at 5:15pm without any inconvenience, however once all the
passengers were aboard it was announced that the flight would be delayed by a few minutes,
since it was necessary to unload a baggage. The airline would then proceed to change the
version of the reason of the delayance 3 more times.
At 9:00 pm, the crew finally announced that the delay was due to a technical malfunction in one
of the motors and therefore the flight would be delayed for several more minutes. The plane
finally took off at 10:00 pm.

On his return to France, Mr Pagani, sent the company a letter in order to be compensated for
the damage suffered as a result of this delay up to 600 euros, in accordance with Article 7 of
Community Regulation 261/2004. Nevertheless, according to article 5, paragraph 3 of the
Regulation 261/2004 on Air Passenger rights, if the airline is not responsible for the delay or
cancellation of the flight, it is not obliged to compensate its passengers. Indeed, the company is
exempted from compensation to its air passengers in case of extraordinary circumstances.
Some of these circumstances include:

● Restriction of airspace
● Airport closure
● Political instability
● Airport staff strikes
● Bird collision with the engine of the aircraft
● Extreme weather condition
● Unavoidable risks to safety

As stated in piece 1 “The delay claimed was due to a technical malfunction requiring
maintenance intervention”, this is what we would consider to be an unavoidable risk to safety.
And as we recall, this malfunction was located in one of the motors. If the airline hadn’t done
anything about this issue, the malfunction could have had, in the worse case scenario, a
fatalistic effect on the flight, therefore it had to be fixed as soon as possible. On the other hand,
According to article 5, paragraph 3 of the Regulation 261/2004, if a plane faces a technical
problem despite all the regular maintenance services, this is not considered anymore to be an
extraordinary circumstance and for this reason the passengers must be compensated.
However, this rule only applies if it is proven that the airline could have done something about it
or if they were aware of the existence of this malfunction. As it can be guessed, Air France and
the members of the crew were not aware of the existence of this issue until last minute. Thus,
requiring the airline to fix the problem in the less time possible. Airplane motors are complex
engines that could take a long time to be repaired if damaged completely or depending on the
type of aircraft, despite this problems, the technical breakdown on the motor was only a minor
malfunction and the airline managed to fix it instead of cancelling the flight.

Throughout this event the crew followed to give different versions of the reasons for the delay as
so not to cause panic within the passengers. There have been many cases where passengers
are caught in panic and therefore do foolish things that could put the rest of the passengers and
the crew at risk. For instance, in April of this year in Moscow, Russia, three passengers jumped
off a plane in motion through the exit doors because one of the motors was “on fire”, according
to experts this phenomenon is often caused when there is an interrupted air flow during engine
start, however it was nothing dangerous. By opening the doors when the plane was about to
take off, these passengers did not only risk their lives but also risked everyone else’s.
If in this case, the crew decided to give straight away the reason for why the flight was being
delayed, one or more passengers could have done something which would only worsen the
situation.
This could have also been the reason for why the passengers were asked to remain seated.
Whereas, the fact that the passengers were not allowed to withdraw from the scheduled flight,
this issue is also addressed on the Regulation 261/2004. This regulation offers the right to book
another flight or withdraw from the flight when it is cancelled or delayed by more than 5 hours.
Nevertheless, Mr. Pagani’s flight was only delayed for 4 hours and not any longer.

To sum up, Air France refused and refuses to give a compensation to Mr. Pagani simply
because, throughout the whole situation, they were always following the rules and doing what
they thought was best in order to maintain the safety of the demandant and the other
passengers.