The Vienna Higher Regional Court had already declared 19 of the clauses at issue to be illegal, but regarded four others as permissible. Now the Supreme Court has declared the four clauses illegal as well. The judgment is final.

The Association for Consumer Information (VKI) had conducted proceedings against Laudamotion GmbH on behalf of the Ministry of Social Affairs because of various clauses in their general conditions of carriage.

One of the invalidated clauses allowed the flight times stated on the booking confirmation to change up to the actual travel date. The VKI saw this as an inadmissible right to change the performance of Laudamotion. The company justified itself by saying that flight times had to be changed again and again and that this depended on a variety of external circumstances. The Supreme Court has now confirmed the legal opinion of the VKI. The clause contains an inadmissible unilateral right of the airline to change the service, as it does not restrict anything to circumstances that are outside Laudamotion's sphere of influence.

Two other clauses were rejected by the Supreme Court because the court considered them suitable to prevent consumers from pursuing legitimate claims. It was about limitations of liability for luggage transport and damage caused by bodily injury. “The clauses give customers an incorrect impression of their legal position and could thus prevent them from enforcing their rights. These clauses contradicted the requirement of transparency,” says Beate Gelbmann, Head of the Complaints Department at the VKI.

In addition, a clause regulated which provisions should take precedence in the event of contradictions between the Laudamotion conditions of carriage and certain regulations of the owner company Ryanair. The Supreme Court judged this clause to be non-transparent because it meant that consumers had to assess whether there were any contradictions between the individual conditions in order to determine which regulations actually apply.

As early as spring 2021, the Higher Regional Court of Vienna declared 19 clauses of the Laudamotion illegal. These included, for example, a clause according to which travelers were not allowed to assign their claims to compensation payments - for example in the case of delayed flights - to commissioned institutions.