If you are travelling to warmer climes this summer for your holidays, odds are you will be travelling by plane. The vast majority of plane journeys pass without incident; however, when things do go wrong, and people are injured, finding out whether you can make a compensation claim might not always be straightforward. This is where a piece in the latest edition of the Busy Solicitors Digest may help to clarify matters. In today’s blog entry I’ve summarized this article.
The article examined the case of Barclay v British Airways, where an airline passenger, Mrs Barclay, sued the airline after she slipped and fell whilst on board one of their flights. Mrs Barclay slipped on the flooring, injuring her knee. She decided to take the airline to court, claiming damages for the injury to her knee.
Injuries in flight are covered by a piece of international law known as the Montreal Convention on International Carriage by Air, which is also contained in the laws of the UK as part of the Carriage by Air Acts 2002. This convention gives a person the right to sue an airline for damages if they are injured as a result of an accident. But there is a difference between a genuine accident, where no-one is to blame other than the victim themselves, and an accident caused by someone’s or an organisation’s negligence. A claim can only be successful if the accident was not the fault of the person who is making the claim.
Mrs Barclay had slipped on a section of the floor of the aircraft that covered the attachment between the seats and the floor. This covering was in full working order, and was of a type used on all similar British Airways planes flying on that route. A judge at the Court of Appeal dismissed her claim on the grounds that the accident had been entirely her own fault, and that no external factors had come into play. In the Montreal Convention, an “accident” was defined as a distinct event that was not “part of the usual, normal and expected operation of the aircraft.” It goes on to say that such an accident must happen “independently of anything being done or omitted by the passenger.”
So basically, the laws relating to injuries on a plane provide the same protections as laws relating to injuries on land in the UK. An example would be a person tripping over a pavement kerb in the street which was properly constructed and well maintained. Obviously this would have been an accident, but it would not have been anyone else’s fault, in exactly the same way as when Mrs Barclay fell whilst trying to sit down on the plane she had an accident, but her accident was no-one else’s fault.
If you’ve had an accident whilst on a plane and you still have questions, call Camps Solicitors today on 0800 092 8586 for a free consultation with one of our personal injury claim solicitors.
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