Held, (1) according to its usual meaning, the concept of “re-routing” referred to an alternative route to that originally planned and was not restricted to the context of a commercial offer. Further, considering the main objective of Regulation No 261/2004, the term was not limited to the airline concerned offering to take the passenger to their final destination on a flight following the one that was cancelled, but could include other flights, including connecting flights, operated by other air carriers. However, the Regulation did not apply to non-commercial flights. A repatriation flight organised by a member state’s foreign consulate was not commercial in nature, and the conditions of such flights could be significantly different from those of commercial flights, for example in relation to the procedure for boarding and the services on board. Therefore, operating air carriers could not offer their passengers a repatriation flight as “re-routing” within the meaning of article 8(1)(b), since they were not entitled to confer on those passengers a right to be carried on such flights. Accordingly, a repatriation flight, organised by a member state’s consulate, following the cancellation of a commercial flight, did not constitute “re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to [the] final destination” within the meaning of articles 5(1)(a) and 8(1)(b) of Parliament and Council Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 (judgment, paras 26–33, operative part, para 1).

(2) Article 8(1) of Regulation No 261/2004 gave passengers whose flights had been cancelled the choice between reimbursement of the full cost of the ticket price or re-routing, under comparable conditions, to their final destination at the earliest opportunity or at a later date at the passengers’ convenience. Therefore, where such re-routing proved impossible, the operating airline could not be released from its obligation to reimburse the passengers. The obligation to offer passengers the various options in article 8(1) presupposed that the relevant airline had provided those passengers with all the relevant information so that they could effectively exercise their rights granted by that article in the event of flight cancellation. The obligation to provide assistance applied irrespective of the event giving rise to the cancellation, and, even in exceptional circumstances, article 5(3) of the Regulation exempted the airline only from its obligation to pay standard compensation under article 7. The Regulation did not recognise a separate category of “particularly extraordinary” events, such as the COVID‑19 pandemic, beyond the “extraordinary circumstances” referred to in article 5(3), which would lead to the air carrier being exempted from all of its obligations. A passenger whose flight was cancelled was therefore entitled to reparation in kind, at the expense of the operating air carrier, in the event of the latter’s failure to provide assistance under article 8(1), including its duty to provide relevant information. Accordingly, article 8(1) of Regulation No 261/2004 meant that a passenger who, following the cancellation of their return flight, registered for a repatriation flight organised by a member state’s consulate, and had to pay a contribution towards the costs involved, did not have a right to reimbursement of those costs at the expense of the operating air carrier on the basis of the Regulation. By contrast, such a passenger could invoke before a national court the failure of the air carrier to comply, first, with its obligation to reimburse the full cost of the ticket price, for the parts of the journey not made or no longer serving any purpose in relation to the passenger’s original travel plan, and, secondly, with its obligation to provide assistance, including its duty to provide information under article 8(1) of the Regulation, in order to obtain compensation from the airline. Such compensation was, however, limited to what was necessary, appropriate and reasonable to remedy the shortcomings of that operating air carrier, in the light of the circumstances of each case (judgment, paras 39–41, 43, 45, 46, 48–50, operative part, para 2).