Treaties Dealing with the Issue of Liability of Airlines

There has been a succession of treaties and agreements between nations, beginning in 1929, dealing with the issue of liability of airlines to their passengers and shippers. The reason for this progression of agreements concerns the way in which airlines themselves were viewed during the early years of their existence. We have pre­viously seen how the attempt to establish and maintain a viable airline business was as risky as, and often directly proportional to, the dangers of flying itself. Flying was dangerous and aircraft were relatively primitive and unreliable. Since commercial aviation was considered by most governments to be a national resource and its promotion to be a government responsibility, the laws governing the liability of such companies reflected their inherent financial frailty.

As air travel became progressively safer and more reliable over the years, the concern of government shifted from promoting aviation for its own sake to concerns over the way and man­ner that the airline business was conducted, and to the protection of the people who used the air­lines for personal travel or shipping cargo.

Below we will consider each of these agree­ments, culminating in the Montreal Conven­tion. All of these agreements were important during the time that they were in effect, but all except the last, the Montreal Convention, are now relegated to historical significance only. The Montreal Convention, like all other international treaties, had to go through a ratification process to become binding upon those countries that subscribe to it. This process began in 1999 and has now about run its course as most civilized countries on earth have signed on. It is to be con­sidered the law for all purposes in this course.

The Warsaw Convention-1929

At the same time that the hemispherical confer­ences were going on in the West, conferences were held in Europe, first in Paris in 1925 and then in Warsaw in 1929. Commercial air trans­portation between far-flung nations, including Europe and the United States, was being rec­ognized as a probability since the significant aerial accomplishments of 1919. In that year the first transatlantic flight had been completed by the United States Navy in a Curtiss flying boat,

NC-4, from North America to Lisbon via the Azores (requiring 57 hours of actual flying time). Englishmen Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur W. Brown made the first nonstop cross­ing from Newfoundland to Ireland (completed in just over 16 hours flying time). The English dirigible R-34 made a round trip from Scotland to Roosevelt Field, Long Island (between July 2 and July 8), and the first scheduled airplane pas­senger service was inaugurated between London and Paris. The primary concerns at the Paris and Warsaw conferences related to the lack of uni­formity in commercial and legal transactions in international civil aviation. In 1929, the signatory nations established through the Warsaw Conven­tion, effective on February 13, 1933, the first rules relating to carrier liability for passenger and cargo interests in international air transportation. The Warsaw Convention (Warsaw) provides the legal framework for the payment of claims for personal injury and death of passengers, claims for damaged goods, cargo and baggage, and claims for delay. Simply put, airlines must pay regardless of fault (strict liability) up to the limits of liability prescribed, subject to certain defenses set out therein. Warsaw also prescribed form and content for tickets, air waybills, and other lading documents.