Under the Montreal Convention

Application to International Air Carriage

The Montreal Convention governs carrier liability in covered international carriage by air, including claims arising from passenger death or bodily injury during the flight or during the operations of embarking or disembarking.

It is a treaty regime, not merely a contractual term. When applicable, it supplies the conditions of liability, available defenses, liability limits or thresholds, jurisdictional choices, and time bar for covered claims. Domestic law remains relevant only to matters the Convention leaves open and only so far as it does not defeat the treaty rules.

The Convention applies to international carriage of persons, baggage, or cargo performed by aircraft for reward. It also applies to gratuitous carriage by an air transport undertaking, because the decisive point is the character of the carrier's undertaking, not the passenger's payment in a particular case.

International carriage is determined by the agreement of the parties. Carriage is international when the agreed place of departure and agreed destination are in the territories of two State Parties, or when they are in the territory of one State Party but there is an agreed stopping place in another State. The agreed itinerary, not an emergency diversion or unplanned landing, ordinarily controls.

Where several carriers perform a single journey, the carriage may still be treated as one undivided international operation if the parties regarded it as a single operation. This is common in connecting flights, code-share arrangements, through tickets, and interline carriage.

For Philippine law, the Convention matters because international air carriage is not analyzed in the same way as ordinary domestic common carrier liability under the Civil Code. The Civil Code's rules on extraordinary diligence, presumption of negligence, and recoverable civil damages may inform background concepts, but they cannot enlarge or avoid the Convention's conditions when the treaty applies.

Passenger Safety Liability

For passenger safety, the central rule is that the carrier is liable for damage sustained in case of death or bodily injury of a passenger if the accident that caused the death or injury took place on board the aircraft or in the course of embarking or disembarking.

The rule has three controlling ideas: there must be an accident, the passenger must suffer death or bodily injury, and the accident must occur within the Convention's spatial and operational coverage.

Accident, Causation, and Bodily Injury

An accident is not every injury that happens during travel. It must be an unusual or unexpected event external to the passenger, such as a sudden operational occurrence, unsafe condition, abnormal movement, or crew handling that is not part of the ordinary and expected course of carriage.

The inquiry focuses on the event that caused the injury, not simply on the fact that the injury was unexpected to the passenger. If the aircraft operated normally and the injury resulted only from the passenger's internal medical condition, the Convention accident requirement may fail.

An external event need not be a crash or catastrophic occurrence. Severe turbulence, a fall caused by unsafe boarding arrangements, mishandled equipment, scalding from service items, or crew conduct that materially departs from ordinary procedure may satisfy the accident requirement if causally connected to the bodily injury.

Causation remains essential. The accident must be the cause of the death or bodily injury, although it need not be the sole cause if it materially contributed to the compensable harm. If the passenger's own condition merely manifests during an otherwise normal flight, the carrier may contest causation and the existence of an accident.

Bodily injury means physical injury to the passenger's body. Mental suffering may be considered only to the extent the governing law treats it as compensable consequence of death or bodily injury and only if the award remains compensatory. The Convention does not convert distress from bad service, delay, fear, or embarrassment into a passenger-safety injury.

Embarking and Disembarking

The phrase embarking or disembarking covers more than the instant of stepping into or out of the aircraft, but it does not cover the entire time the passenger is inside an airport.

The usual factors are the passenger's activity, location, and degree of carrier control. A passenger in the jet bridge, on aircraft stairs, on the ramp, or in a carrier-controlled transfer vehicle may be within the operations of embarking or disembarking when the movement is part of the immediate process of boarding or leaving the aircraft.

A passenger shopping, eating, waiting in a public terminal area, passing through ordinary airport facilities, or moving through areas controlled by airport authorities rather than the carrier may fall outside the Convention's death or bodily injury rule, even if the passenger is already checked in or has arrived from a flight.

The analysis is functional. The closer the passenger is to the aircraft movement process and the greater the carrier's direction or control, the stronger the basis for treating the incident as within embarking or disembarking.

Two-Tier Liability for Death or Bodily Injury

The Convention uses a two-tier system for passenger death or bodily injury. The first tier imposes liability without the need to prove carrier fault up to the adjusted special drawing right threshold. The second tier permits recovery above that threshold unless the carrier proves a treaty defense.

Under the adjusted Montreal Convention limits in force within the relevant examination coverage, the first-tier amount for death or bodily injury is 151,880 special drawing rights. This is not a peso amount; it is converted by reference to the applicable value of the special drawing right under the Convention's monetary rules.

The second-tier defense is strict in practical effect. It is not enough for the carrier to show that a third party was partly at fault; third-party fault must be the sole cause if that defense is invoked. If carrier negligence also contributed, the defense fails for the excess portion.

The carrier may also defeat excess liability by proving absence of negligence or other wrongful act or omission by itself, its servants, or its agents. The relevant conduct includes flight operations, boarding procedures, crew response, safety instructions, maintenance, and other acts connected with carriage.

The Convention invalidates contractual clauses that relieve the carrier of liability or fix a lower limit than the Convention allows. A carrier may stipulate higher limits or waive limits, but it cannot contract below the treaty floor.

Contributory Fault

The Convention recognizes contributory fault. If the carrier proves that the damage was caused or contributed to by the negligence or other wrongful act or omission of the person claiming compensation, or of the passenger from whom the claimant derives rights, the carrier may be wholly or partly exonerated to the extent of that contribution.

This rule can apply even within the first tier. Strict first-tier liability does not make the carrier an insurer against harm materially caused by the passenger's own wrongful conduct, such as ignoring safety instructions, refusing required restraint, concealing a material condition when disclosure is necessary for safe handling, or creating the immediate hazard.

The exoneration must correspond to causation. Mere imperfection in passenger conduct does not reduce recovery unless it caused or contributed to the death or bodily injury.

Recoverable Damages

The Convention creates the liability basis but does not provide a complete civil code of damages. Questions such as who may claim for a deceased passenger, what losses are compensatory, and how support, medical expenses, funeral expenses, lost earnings, or consequential personal losses are quantified may be answered by the applicable domestic law, subject to treaty limits.

In a Philippine action, domestic civil law concepts may therefore help determine compensatory loss, especially actual loss, support, medical and burial expenses, and other legally recognized consequences of death or bodily injury. Those concepts cannot be used to recover items the Convention excludes or to evade its jurisdictional and time rules.

Article 29 bars punitive, exemplary, or other non-compensatory damages in actions for damages under the Convention, regardless of whether the action is framed in contract, tort, quasi-delict, or another theory. The label chosen in the complaint does not control if the substance of the claim is a Convention-covered passenger injury or death claim.

Moral harm must be handled carefully in Convention claims. Philippine law treats moral damages as compensatory in proper cases, but the Convention's focus on death or bodily injury means that emotional or mental suffering must be tied to a recoverable physical injury or death-related compensable loss and must not operate as punitive or exemplary recovery.

For death or bodily injury, the Convention does not impose an absolute maximum recovery. The adjusted special drawing right figure is a first-tier threshold, not a ceiling. Proven compensatory damages above the threshold may be recovered unless the carrier establishes the applicable second-tier defense.

Advance Payments and Insurance Function

In aircraft accidents resulting in death or injury, the Convention contemplates advance payments to meet immediate economic needs when required by the carrier's national law. Such payments are not admissions of liability and may be offset against the final amount payable.

The rule reflects the protective character of the Convention: immediate assistance should not wait for final adjudication, but the payment should not prejudice the legal determination of liability, defenses, or damages.

Contracting Carrier, Actual Carrier, and Agents

Modern international air travel often separates the airline that sells the ticket from the airline that operates the aircraft. The Convention addresses this by recognizing both the contracting carrier and the actual carrier.

The contracting carrier is the carrier that made the contract of carriage with the passenger or on the passenger's behalf. The actual carrier is the carrier that performs all or part of the carriage by authority of the contracting carrier. Both may be relevant in code-share, wet lease, charter, and interline arrangements.

For the portion of carriage performed by an actual carrier, the acts and omissions of the actual carrier and its servants or agents may create Convention liability. The passenger may sue the contracting carrier, the actual carrier, or both, subject to the Convention's limits, defenses, and jurisdictional rules.

Servants and agents of the carrier may invoke Convention conditions and limits when they acted within the scope of their employment or authority. This prevents claimants from avoiding the treaty regime by suing pilots, cabin crew, ground personnel, or handling agents separately for the same covered harm.

Successive Carriage and Connecting Flights

In successive carriage, liability generally attaches to the carrier that performed the carriage during which the accident occurred. If the first carrier expressly assumed liability for the entire journey, its liability may extend according to the Convention and the contract of carriage.

The passenger's itinerary should be read as a whole. A single ticket with connecting segments may evidence one international carriage even if one segment is domestic in geography, provided the overall agreement includes international carriage within the Convention's definition.

Conversely, a separate domestic ticket that is not part of a single international operation may be governed by domestic common carrier law rather than the Montreal Convention. The separation must be genuine in contract and operation, not merely a device to avoid treaty rules.

Jurisdiction and Venue

The Convention provides exclusive jurisdictional options for passenger claims. An action for damages may be brought, at the claimant's choice, before a competent court in a State Party within the Convention forums.

The traditional forums are the carrier's domicile, the carrier's principal place of business, the place where the contract was made through the carrier's place of business, and the place of destination. For passenger death or injury, the Convention also recognizes a fifth forum tied to the passenger's principal and permanent residence, provided the carrier operates services to or from that State and conducts business there through its own premises or through another carrier under a commercial agreement.

The fifth jurisdiction is especially important for residents who purchased or took international carriage through airlines commercially present in their home State. It is not based on temporary presence, citizenship alone, or convenience alone; the passenger must have principal and permanent residence in the relevant State at the time of the accident.

Philippine procedural rules determine the competent Philippine court and ordinary venue only after the Convention allows the Philippines as a forum. Local procedure cannot create a Convention jurisdiction where none exists.

Two-Year Extinguishment of the Right

The right to damages under the Convention is extinguished if the action is not brought within two years. The period is counted from the date of arrival at the destination, the date on which the aircraft ought to have arrived, or the date on which carriage stopped.

This is a treaty time bar, not an ordinary local prescriptive period that can freely yield to domestic tolling rules. A claimant cannot avoid the two-year extinguishment by recasting the same covered injury or death as breach of contract, tort, quasi-delict, consumer protection, or another domestic cause of action.

For passenger death or bodily injury, the Convention does not impose the written complaint periods that apply to baggage claims. Notice to the airline may be practical for evidence and settlement, but it is not the treaty condition that preserves a passenger injury action. Filing the action within the two-year period is the decisive step.

Exclusivity of the Convention

The Convention's exclusivity rule means that an action for damages, however founded, may be brought only subject to the conditions and limits set out in the Convention when the claim falls within its substantive scope.

The rule prevents double recovery and prevents parties from bypassing treaty limitations through domestic labels. If the claim is for death or bodily injury caused by an accident on board or during embarking or disembarking in covered international carriage, the Convention governs the action even if the complaint invokes negligence, breach of contract, quasi-delict, or common carrier duties.

Exclusivity does not mean that all disputes involving airlines are Convention claims. Claims outside the treaty's substantive field, such as purely domestic carriage, injuries outside embarking or disembarking, denied boarding not resulting in covered bodily injury, ticketing disputes, discrimination claims independent of bodily injury, or purely regulatory sanctions, may be governed by other applicable law.

The key is the substance of the wrong and the injury for which damages are sought. If the damage is the Convention's subject, the treaty governs; if the wrong is outside the Convention's subject, domestic law may supply the rule.

Relationship with Philippine Common Carrier Law

Philippine law treats common carriers as bound to exercise extraordinary diligence for the safety of passengers in domestic carriage. In passenger death or injury, domestic law ordinarily places a heavy burden on the carrier and allows civil damages according to the Civil Code.

For covered international air carriage, however, the Montreal Convention supplies the special law. The passenger need not prove carrier negligence for first-tier recovery, but the passenger must prove the treaty elements of accident, bodily injury or death, and covered location or operation.

The Convention can be more favorable than domestic negligence law in one respect because first-tier liability does not depend on proving fault. It can be more restrictive in another respect because it excludes uncovered injuries, imposes treaty jurisdictional choices, bars non-compensatory damages, and extinguishes the right after two years.

Domestic law performs a supporting role. It may identify proper heirs or beneficiaries, help measure compensatory damages, govern procedure in the selected forum, and address claims outside the Convention. It may not contradict the Convention's accident requirement, two-tier liability structure, exclusivity rule, jurisdictional design, or time bar.

Practical Consequences in Passenger Injury Claims

A covered passenger injury claim is strongest when the facts show a specific abnormal event, a clear physical injury or death, and a direct connection to flight, boarding, or deplaning operations under carrier control.

The carrier's principal defenses are that the carriage was not covered international carriage, the claimant was not a passenger, no Convention accident occurred, the harm was not death or bodily injury, the event occurred outside boarding or deplaning operations, the claimant filed in a non-Convention forum, the two-year period expired, the passenger's own fault caused or contributed to the damage, or excess damages are defeated by the second-tier defenses.

The passenger's remedies are compensatory. The Convention is designed to give predictable recovery for international air accidents while preserving limits and defenses necessary for uniform international carriage. Its rules should therefore be applied as an integrated treaty system rather than as isolated amendments to domestic common carrier law.