The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois recently granted summary judgment in favor of US Airways after finding that the airline was not liable for a ten-hour delay of a flight from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Chicago, Illinois. In Bernfeld v. US Airways, Inc., the plaintiffs were traveling from Tel Aviv to Chicago, with a stopover in Philadelphia. The plane that was to fly them from Philadelphia to Chicago suffered a bird strike on approach into Philadelphia, which necessitated certain maintenance inspections and made it unavailable for the plaintiffs' flight to Chicago. The uncontroverted evidence showed that US Airways made every effort to locate a spare aircraft, but that none was available. Plaintiffs asserted delay claims under Article 19 of the Montreal Convention, as well as claims for breach of its contract of carriage and violation of Israel's Aviation Services Law.
The Court addressed the Article 19 claim first, and held that US Airways had a complete defense pursuant to Article 19 because it took "took all measures that could reasonably be required to avoid the damage or that it was impossible for it or them to take such measures." The court rejected Plaintiffs' argument that US Airways did not have policies in place to mitigate delays under the circumstances presented or to mitigate or rectify the consequences of the delay on passengers. To the contrary, it held, a US Airways representative gave written deposition testimony that in the event of a bird strike it temporarily takes the plane out of service and locates a suitable spare aircraft or, if none is available, books affected passengers on other flights.
Plaintiffs' contract of carriage claim failed because the contract expressly provided that the Montreal Convention was incorporated therein for international travel, and also set forth similar language to Article 19 as a standalone section in the contract. Finally, the claims under the Israeli Aviation Services Law, which provides a scheme of automatic damages based on the length of the flight and length of the delay, failed because the Israeli law could not be applied in the United States. Instead, the Court read the Israeli law as creating only administrative enforcement actions within Israel, with no international remedy available. Bernfeld v. US Airways, Inc., 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 52997 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 20, 2016).
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