At the beginning of the Pandemic of Covid-19, some French people were on vacation abroad. Their travel agency, which has repatriated them in an emergency, before the borders closed, should it reimburse them the share of stay which had not been used? A long -awaited first decision has just been rendered.
It concerns M. and M me x, who left to make a cruise in Egypt, from March 14 to 21, 2020 (with the sum of 1,861 euros), and repatriated by the tour operator Fram on the 18th march. On the return, M x claims the reimbursement of unpaid land services, i.e. 213 euros. Fram gave her a year, which she refuses.
M me x mobilizes the legal protection of his insurance to assign the tour operator. Her lawyer claims … more than 600 euros, according to her corresponding to the “integrality of unpaid services”, and including the return flight – while it took place, at a price probably very higher than that that Fram had been able to negotiate for March 21.
1,500 euros in damages
The lawyer invokes an article of the Tourism Code according to which the traveler who has subscribed to a package travel contract “is entitled to an appropriate price reduction, for any period of non-compliance with the services provided” ( L 211-17-I ). The term “price reduction”, which is understood in relation to the price paid, designates the reimbursement of unpaid services.
Fail, no doubt of contradiction -FRAM not being represented at the trial -, the proximity court of Aubagne (Bouches -du -Rhône) gives reason to M me x. He He allocates, in addition … 1,500 euros in damages. The tour operator Fram appeals. His lawyer assures that he has fulfilled his “obligation to remedy the non-compliance of the services provided”, by granting his client a “price reduction of 213 euros”, in the form of a credit.
The Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal, which decides on May 5, 2022, recalls that under the Tourism Code ( Article L211-16-I ) The professional is certainly responsible” automatically “for the bad execution of services Scheduled by the contract, but that it “can be exempt from its responsibility”, by providing proof that the damage is attributable to “exceptional circumstances”. And that, in this case, “the traveler is not entitled to any compensation” (article L 211-17-III).
“Commercial gesture”
Now, notes the courtyard, the repatriation of the X is “linked to the world pandemic of COVID-19”. This appearance is analyzed as “an exceptional circumstance” and “a case of force majeure”, which “allows Fram to exempt from its responsibility”. Consequently, she judges, Fram was not required to compensate her client, or even to give her a credit, which she describes as “commercial gesture”. M me x not having cassation, this judgment will be jurisprudence.
If the Aix court had judged that Fram should reimburse the unpaid services, it would probably not have admitted that it does it in the form of a credit, not convertible into money. The Brussels Commission has indeed tangled the airlines which had allowed itself to do so for the flights they had canceled. She insisted on the fact that travelers had to be reimbursed in sound and stumbling currency, and not in the form of assets – unless they agreed.
In July 2020, she launched an offense against France, because she had momentarily authorized travel agencies to postpone their reimbursement, of twenty -one months: Order of March 25, 2020 , which concerned the cancellations occurred between 1 er March 2020 and on September 15, 2020 inclusive, derogated from the principle of “full reimbursement”, provided by Directive on package trips.