When flights are cancelled, airlines prefer to issue travel vouchers instead of refunding the ticket price. However, a judgement by the European Court of Justice shows that passengers do not have to put up with this.

If a flight is cancelled, passengers can demand a refund of the ticket price. According to current EU law, the airline must then transfer the money back within seven days. Vouchers instead of money are only permitted as a refund if passengers have explicitly given their consent.

In concrete terms, this means that you must have received comprehensive information from the airline and have at least completed a corresponding form on the airline's website in which you agree to travel vouchers as a form of reimbursement. According to case law, a handwritten or digital signature is not required.

Loyalty account is not consent

What is not sufficient as consent for a refund in voucher form, however, is if the passenger merely creates a loyalty account on the airline's website to which the airline could transfer the travel vouchers. This was clarified by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg in a recent judgement (Case: C-642/23).

According to the ECJ, by creating a loyalty account, the customer may make it clear that he or she wishes to participate in the airline's loyalty programme in general. However, this in itself is not an explicit and unambiguous consent to travel vouchers as a form of reimbursement for cancelled flights.

The plaintiff is the air passenger rights portal Flightright, which also refers to the judgement that has now been published. The passenger, who was in dispute with an airline over this issue, had assigned his rights in the case to Flightright.

The Düsseldorf Regional Court had asked the ECJ how the current EU Passenger Rights Regulation should be interpreted in this matter. The Düsseldorf court must now decide on the specific case but must take the ECJ's interpretation of the law into account. / dpa