"(3)This Regulation should not affect other rights of passengers established by Community legislation and notably Council Directive 90/314/EEC of13 June 1990 on package travel, package holidays and package tours and Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of11 February 2004 establishing common rules on compensation and assistance to air passengers in the event of denied boarding and of cancellation or long delay of flights. Where the same event would give rise to the same right of reimbursement or rebooking under either of those legislative acts as well as under this Regulation, the person so entitled should be allowed to exercise that right once only, at his or her discretion. (5) Assistance given at airports situated in the territory of a Member State to which the Treaty applies should, among other things, enable disabled persons... to proceed from a designated point of arrival at an airport to an aircraft... including embarking... The assistance should be organised so as to avoid interruption and delay, while ensuring high and equivalent standards throughout the Community and making best use of resources, whatever airport or air carrier is involved... (17)Complaints concerning assistance given at an airport should be addressed to the body or bodies designated for the enforcement of this Regulation by the Member State where the airport is situated. Complaints concerning assistance given by an air carrier should be addressed to the body or bodies designated for the enforcement of this Regulation by the Member State which has issued the operating licence to the air carrier... (19)Since the objectives of this Regulation, namely to ensure high and equivalent levels of protection and assistance throughout the Member States and to ensure that economic agents operate under harmonised conditions in a single market, cannot sufficiently be achieved by the Member States and can therefore, by reason of the scale or effects of the action, be better achieved at Community level, the Community may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty. In accordance with the principle of proportionality as set out in that Article, this Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve those objectives."
"Article 1 Purpose and scope 1. This Regulation establishes rules for the protection of and provision of assistance to disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility travelling by air, both to protect them against discrimination and to ensure that they receive assistance. 2. The provisions of this Regulation shall apply to disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility, using or intending to use commercial passenger air services on departure from, on transit through, or on arrival at an airport, when the airport is situated in the territory of a Member State to which the Treaty applies. 3. Articles 3, 4 and 10 shall also apply to passengers departing from an airport situated in a third country to an airport situated in the territory of a Member State to which the Treaty applies, if the operating carrier is a Community air carrier... Article 3 Prevention of refusal of carriage An air carrier or its agent or a tour operator shall not refuse, on the grounds of disability or of reduced mobility: (a) to accept a reservation for a flight departing from or arriving at an airport to which this Regulation applies; (b) to embark a disabled person or a person with reduced mobility at such an airport, provided that the person concerned has a valid ticket and reservation. Article 4 Derogations, special conditions and information. 1. Notwithstanding the provisions of Article 3, an air carrier or its agent or a tour operator may refuse, on the grounds of disability [in certain specified circumstances relating to safety and airport size]... In the event of refusal to accept a reservation on the grounds referred to under points (a) or (b) of the first subparagraph, the air carrier, its agent or the tour operator shall make reasonable efforts to propose an acceptable alternative to the person in question... Article 7 Right to assistance at airports 1. When a disabled person or person with reduced mobility arrives at an airport for travel by air, the managing body of the airport shall be responsible for ensuring the provision of the assistance specified in Annex I... Article 10 Assistance by air carriers An air carrier shall provide the assistance specified in Annex II without additional charge to a disabled person or person with reduced mobility departing from, arriving at or transiting through an airport to which this Regulation applies provided that the person in question fulfils the conditions set out in Article 7(1), (2) and (4)."
"a requirement where a disabled person would, but for the provision of an auxiliary aid, be put at a substantial disadvantage in relation to a relevant matter in comparison with persons who are not disabled to take such steps as it is reasonable to have to take to provide the auxiliary aid."
"To permit exceptions, whereby a passenger could sue outwith the Convention for losses sustained in the course of international carriage by air, would distort the whole system, even in cases for which the Convention did not create any liability on the part of the carrier. Thus the purpose is to ensure that, in all questions relating to the carrier's liability, it is the provisions of the Convention which apply and that the passenger does not have access to any other remedies, whether under the common law or otherwise, which may be available within the particular country where he chooses to raise his action."
"I believe that the answer to the question raised in the present case is to be found in the objects and structure of the Convention. The language used and the subject matter with which it deals demonstrate that what was sought to be achieved was a uniform international code, which could be applied by the courts of all the High Contracting Parties without reference to the rules of their own domestic law. The Convention does not purport to deal with all matters relating to contracts of international carriage by air. But in those areas with which it deals - and the liability of the carrier is one of them - the code is intended to be uniform and to be exclusive also of any resort to the rules of domestic law. An answer to the question which leaves claimants without a remedy is not at first sight attractive. It is tempting to give way to the argument that where there is a wrong there must be a remedy. That indeed is the foundation upon which much of our own common law has been built up... Alongside these principles, however, there lies another great principle, which is that of freedom of contract. Any person is free, unless restrained by statute, to enter into a contract with another on the basis that his liability in damages is excluded or limited if he is in breach of contract... [The Warsaw Convention] was not designed to provide remedies against the carrier to enable all losses to be compensated. It was designed instead to define those situations in which compensation was to be available. So it set out the limits of liability and the conditions under which claims to establish that liability, if disputed, were to be made. A balance was struck, in the interests of certainty and uniformity."