Infants are also entitled to compensation – NEW JUDGMENTS FROM THE EASTERN COUNTRY COURT

The Eastern High Court has today ruled that a child under the age of 2 (“infant”) is also entitled tocompensation – even if only an “infant supplement” of DKK 398 has been paid for the child.

Article 3 of the Air Regulation, which is entitled “scope”, states that the Air Regulation applies “where passengers [] have a confirmed reservation for the flight concerned []” (my emphasis).

Indeed, the Court of Justice of the European Union has already ruled that the said provision in Article 3(3) must be interpreted as meaning that a passenger 1) who travels free of charge because of his or her young age, 2) who has neither been allocated a seat nor issued with a boarding pass (i.e. infants) and 3) whose name does not appear in the reservations made by his or her parents, does not fall within the scope of the Air Regulation.

Thus, it is also established that it must be understood literally that passengers who have a confirmed reservation for the flight in question (e.g. because the name is listed on the travel companion’s ticket, cf. case C-436/21) are covered by the Regulation, as the 3 conditions mentioned above are cumulative.

The cases, which have now been tried by the Eastern High Court, concern charter trips booked through a large Danish travel agency. In both cases, the infants are listed by name on the parents’ tickets from the travel agency, and it appears from the reservations in both cases that an “infant supplement” of DKK 398 has been paid.

In both cases, the airline claimed that the amount covered expenses or profit that did not directly concern the airline or otherwise benefit the airline.

Nevertheless, the two infants were awarded compensation in the same way as their parents.

The conclusion of the judgments from the Eastern High Court must be that the fact that only a – relatively small – fee was paid for the infant does not mean that the infant is not covered by the Regulation.