An airline that chooses on its own to hold a flight for delayed connecting passengers can lose the EU261 extraordinary-circumstances defense if that wait becomes the determining cause of a later arrival delay. The General Court of the European Union confirmed that in Case T-656/24, handed down on 4 March 2026.
What the court did not do is define the boundary. It set no passenger-count threshold and no test for when a wait stops being optional, sending that question back to the Regional Court in Düsseldorf, which has yet to rule.
Every EU261 claim comes down to a single fork. If the delay was caused by something genuinely outside the airline’s control, the carrier keeps its money. If it wasn’t, the passenger gets paid.
Airlines lean on that first branch constantly. It is the extraordinary-circumstances defense under Article 5(3) of Regulation 261/2004, and it is the main shield carriers raise against delay claims across Europe.
On 4 March 2026, the General Court narrowed it in a way that should interest anyone who has watched a gate agent hold a door open for a sprinting passenger. In Case T-656/24, the court held that when a carrier decides on its own to wait for a group of delayed connecting passengers, and that decision becomes the determining cause of a later flight arriving late, the external disruption that started the chain no longer shields the airline.
What the General Court actually decided
The facts are ordinary enough. Passengers NI and HZ held bookings on European Air Charter‘s Düsseldorf–Varna service for 23 July 2022. Earlier that day, security checkpoints at Cologne-Bonn had run unusually slow, holding a preceding flight back by more than five hours.
The carrier chose to wait for the passengers caught in that queue, then swapped in a replacement aircraft and reworked the later sectors. NI and HZ’s flight slipped as a result.
European Air Charter pointed to the security failure as an extraordinary circumstance. The first-instance claim failed, and the Regional Court sent the legal questions upward.
The General Court’s answer turned on causation. Between the extraordinary event and the delay passengers ultimately experienced, the court placed the decision to wait as an act standing on its own. Where a carrier makes a voluntary choice that nothing required of it, and that choice becomes the determining cause of the late arrival, Article 5(3) cannot apply.
The threshold nobody has defined
The ruling’s sharpest edge is what it declines to measure. Neither Article 5(3), nor the EU261 authorities reviewed, nor the 4 March 2026 judgment puts a number on the passenger group.
Ten delayed passengers? Forty? A full connecting bank?
The court offers no figure, and it expressly sent the decisive factual question back to Düsseldorf: was the carrier legally obliged to hold the flight?
Article 5(3) asks a carrier for two things — that the long delay stemmed from extraordinary circumstances, and that no reasonable measure could have averted the consequences. Neither, on its own, creates a duty to hold a later flight. T-656/24 also sets no financial threshold, staffing metric, or turnaround calculation for proving that such a duty existed.
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The operational dilemma airlines can’t resolve
Strip away the legal vocabulary and the problem is a scheduling one. A hold keeps one group of passengers moving, but it draws down the aircraft and crew time that later sectors are built on. At Cologne-Bonn, the wait stretched on, a replacement aircraft was brought in, and the knock-on delay landed on a different set of travelers.
An airline facing that choice has no clean rule to follow. Wait for the connection and it may forfeit the defense for whatever delay follows. Depart on time and it risks a different complaint from the passengers left behind.
The General Court confirmed the carrier is free to make either call — and, in the same breath, that one of them can cost it the exemption.
| Case number | Court | Judgment date | Disruption type | Did the carrier’s own act break the causal chain? | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| T-656/24 | General Court of the European Union | 4 March 2026 | Security-check delays on an earlier flight; carrier waited for passengers, then rescheduled a later flight | Capable of doing so if the autonomous decision to wait was the determining cause and the carrier was not legally obliged to wait | Issue remitted to the Regional Court in Düsseldorf to determine whether a legal obligation to wait existed |
| C-308/21 | Court of Justice of the European Union | 7 July 2022 | Failure of an aircraft refuelling system | Not an intervening voluntary passenger-wait decision | Carrier must show that the extraordinary circumstance could not have been avoided with all reasonable measures and that appropriate measures were taken |
| C-405/23 | Court of Justice of the European Union | Not verified in the reviewed source set | Insufficient airport-operator baggage-loading staff | Not an intervening voluntary passenger-wait decision | The circumstance may qualify as extraordinary, but the carrier must prove reasonable measures and appropriate action to avoid the delay |
| C-156/22 to C-158/22 | Court of Justice of the European Union | 11 May 2023 | Death of a co-pilot | Not an intervening voluntary passenger-wait decision | Extraordinary circumstances require an event outside the normal exercise of the carrier’s activity and beyond its actual control; both conditions are assessed case by case |
| C-195/17 and joined cases | Court of Justice of the European Union | Not verified in the reviewed source set | Large-scale staff absences following a restructuring announcement | Not verified as a causal-chain intervention | The Court addressed whether the spontaneous staff absences could constitute extraordinary circumstances under Article 5(3) |
| Source: Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), EUR-Lex | |||||
Why the boundary stays open
Case T-656/24 reached the General Court as a preliminary reference from the Regional Court in Düsseldorf. That procedural detail matters more than it sounds.
A reference asks the EU court to interpret the law; it does not decide the underlying compensation claim. The unresolved legal-obligation question now goes back to Düsseldorf, which must apply the General Court’s reasoning to the facts of the 2022 flight.
As of 15 October 2026, EUR-Lex carries the 4 March 2026 judgment and notes that the Regional Court has yet to decide whether European Air Charter was under a legal duty to wait. Nothing in the reviewed material shows a later Düsseldorf ruling or an appeal to the Court of Justice. The group-size threshold and the evidentiary test therefore remain open questions, not settled ones.
What this means for you
For a traveler, the ruling shifts the odds in one direction. If your flight arrived late after a visible operational decision — a hold at the gate, a wait for a connecting group, an aircraft swap — that detail may matter to a claim, because it can move the cause of the delay onto the carrier’s own choice.
Keep boarding passes and delay records. Note whether the delay followed a decision you could see happening, since the General Court has now made that distinction legally load-bearing.
EU261 covers departures from EU airports whatever the operating carrier’s nationality, which is why an Asia-Pacific airline’s EU-departure leg falls inside the same rules. What to watch is Düsseldorf. Until that court answers whether European Air Charter had to wait, the boundary stays where the General Court left it: visible, consequential, and undefined.
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Key terms
- Article 5(3)
- Article 5(3) is the clause of Regulation 261/2004 that excuses an airline from paying delay compensation when the disruption was extraordinary. It asks the carrier to show both that the cause was extraordinary and that no reasonable measure could have avoided the consequences. In Case T-656/24, the General Court held that a carrier’s own decision to wait for late passengers can sit between the disruption and the delay, so the defense may not reach the arrival that follows.
- Regulation 261/2004
- Regulation 261/2004 is the EU law that sets compensation and assistance standards for air passengers. It applies to any flight departing an EU airport, and to flights arriving in the EU on an EU carrier, regardless of the operating airline’s nationality. Its Article 5(3) defense is the provision airlines most often raise against delay claims, and Case T-656/24 narrowed how far that defense stretches when a carrier chooses to hold a flight.
- Preliminary reference
- A preliminary reference is the procedure by which a national court asks the Court of Justice of the European Union to interpret EU law before it rules on a case. The EU court answers the legal question only; the underlying dispute stays with the referring court. Case T-656/24 arrived this way from the Regional Court in Düsseldorf, which is why the compensation claim itself is still unresolved.
Questions? Answers.
How much compensation does EU261 provide for a delayed flight?
Article 7 sets three distance bands: EUR 250 for flights up to 1,500 kilometres, EUR 400 for an intra-EU flight beyond 1,500 kilometres or another flight between 1,500 and 3,500 kilometres, and EUR 600 beyond that. The amount is payable only if the arrival delay qualifies and the carrier cannot make out the extraordinary-circumstances defense.
Did the General Court set a passenger-count threshold for when an airline must wait?
No. The reviewed EU261 authorities contain no passenger-count figure that would make a carrier’s wait obligatory, and T-656/24 sets no financial, staffing, or turnaround test for proving such a duty.
Has the Regional Court in Düsseldorf ruled on whether European Air Charter had to wait?
Not as of 15 October 2026. The reviewed material shows no later Düsseldorf ruling and no appeal to the Court of Justice, leaving the legal-obligation question open.
What must a carrier prove to rely on the extraordinary-circumstances defense?
Under Article 5(3), the carrier must show the long delay stemmed from extraordinary circumstances and that no reasonable measure could have averted the consequences.
