Van der Lans — operating carrier is always liable

The Van der Lans ruling (ECJ C-257/14, 17 September 2015) is the key case law for codeshare flights where marketing carrier and operating carrier differ.

The case. Mrs Van der Lans booked a KLM flight from Quito (Ecuador) to Amsterdam. The flight was operated by a KLM aircraft but maintained by third parties — a technical fault occurred, 29-hour delay. KLM rejected compensation citing "technical fault" as extraordinary circumstance. The Amsterdam court asked the ECJ to interpret.

What did the ECJ decide? Two things:

1. Technical faults do not count as extraordinary circumstances — reaffirming Wallentin-Hermann. A technical fault arising during normal maintenance remains within the carrier's risk sphere.
2. The operating carrier is liable — not the marketing carrier — for compensation under EU 261. "Operating" means: the carrier that actually performs the flight, regardless of which flight code it was booked under.

Practical impact. On codeshare flights (KLM/Delta, KLM/Air France, Lufthansa/United, etc.) airlines often tried to dodge compensation by referring to the marketing carrier ("that's a KLM booking, go to KLM") while they were the operating carrier. Van der Lans + the subsequent flightright ruling (C-274/16) make that deflection impossible.

For your claim: if you had a codeshare flight and the marketing and operating carriers refer you back and forth, use our codeshare bounce letter. It addresses the operating carrier directly and cites Van der Lans + flightright explicitly.