Traduction de «Extraordinary circumstance » (Anglais → Français) :

6. The Board shall endeavour to cooperate closely with any public financial assistance facility including the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), in particular in the extraordinary circumstances referred to in Article 27(9) and where such a facility has granted, or is likely to grant, direct or indirect financial assistance to entities established in a participating Member State.

What should be understood by the concept of extraordinary circumstances which, according to paragraph 23 of the Wallentin judgment, surround the event ‘unexpected flight safety shortcomings’ as referred to in the aforesaid recital 14 if, in the light of paragraph 22, unexpected flight safety shortcomings cannot themselves constitute extraordinary circumstances but may only produce such circumstances?

An air carrier can only rely on extraordinary circumstances if it can prove that the cancellation/delay is caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken.

It is apparent from paragraph 23 of the Wallentin judgment that a technical problem can be considered to be covered by ‘unexpected flight safety shortcomings’ and is therefore an ‘event’ within the meaning of paragraph 22 of the Wallentin judgment; the circumstances surrounding that event may nevertheless be regarded as extraordinary if they relate to an event which is not inherent in the normal exercise of the activities of the air carrier and beyond the actual control of that carrier on account of its nature or origin, as provided in paragraph 23 of the Wallentin judgment; according to paragraph 24 thereof, the resolution of a technical problem which can be traced back to poor maintenance of an aircraft is inherent in the normal exercis ...[+++]e of an air carrier’s activity; therefore, according to paragraph 25 of the Wallentin judgment, such technical problems cannot constitute extraordinary circumstances.

If question 6 is answered to the effect that technical problems which are considered to be unexpected flight safety shortcomings constitute extraordinary circumstances which may justify invoking Article 5(3) of the Regulation if they arise from an event which is not inherent in the exercise of the activities of the airline and is beyond the actual control of the latter, does that then mean that a technical problem which arose spontaneously and is not attributable to poor maintenance and was moreover not detected during routine maintenance checks (the said A-D Checks and the Daily Control .) can or cannot constitute an extraordinary circu ...[+++]mstance — on the assumption that it could not be detected during the regular maintenance operations — because then no event as referred to in paragraph 26 can be identified and it is therefore also not possible to determine whether such an event is inherent in the exercise of the activities of the airline and is thus beyond the control of the air carrier?

It appears to follow from those paragraphs that a technical problem which is covered by ‘unexpected flight safety shortcomings’ is simultaneously an event which may be surrounded by extraordinary circumstances and may itself constitute an extraordinary circumstance.