If a foreign airline canceled a flight to Israel following 7 October or the Iranian missile attack, is that airline exempt from paying monetary compensation to the passengers under the special and unpredicted circumstances exemption provided in the Israel Aviation Service Law (the “Law”)? This is a question that has kept the courts – as well as the airlines – busy, and has recently been answered in two separate small claims legal decisions.
The courts ruled that two flights that were canceled during wartime and in the wake of Iran’s missile attack were not exempt from the obligation to pay monetary compensation. Inter alia, the courts based their decisions on the fact that other airlines (including foreign airlines) continued flying to Israel during the war. The courts further ruled that the defendants did not prove that they were forced to cancel their flights, but it appeared that they canceled them of their own accord due to the war – which is not an unpredicted event in Israel – especially where the flights in question were scheduled to depart from Israel several months after October 2023, so there was already what the courts called a “war routine” in place.
Note that these small claims court decisions do not entirely rule out the “special circumstances” exemption in the event of flight cancellations during wartime, but they do emphasize that this exemption will not be automatically applied, and an airline should raise adequate arguments to support its claim for use of the exemption. These rulings may also affect other obligations under the Law, and may encourage passengers to file a motion to certify class actions against airlines that canceled their flights during wartime.
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