Richard Pringle & Anor v Ryanair DAC [2025] EWCC 66

[2025] EWCC 66

Case No M1BR5X45

Date 24 November 2025

IN THE COUNTY COURT AT CAERNARFON

Before

HHJ OWEN

Between

(1 )Richard PringleClaimants

(2) Lyubomir TroharovClaimant

Ryanair DACDefendant

Miss Melissa Roberts, Solicitor agent for Claimant

Mr Russell Moffatt, Counsel for Defendant

Hearing Hearing date: 18 November 2025

JUDGMENT

HHJ Owen:

[1]This is the Defendant’s application dated 22 July 2025 for an order under CPR 11 that the Court declare that the Courts of England and Wales have no jurisdiction to try this claim and that the court should set aside the claim form and/or set aside service of the claim form pursuant to CPR 11.6. It is supported by a statement from Igli Hajdari, a Paralegal at the firm of solicitors acting for the Defendant. The Claimants rely on a statement in response from Emma Court, a paralegal at the firm of solicitors acting for the Claimants, dated 31 October 2025. I have also been provided with caselaw to which I will refer later in this judgment.

[2]I have heard submissions from Counsel for the parties. I have reserved judgment as I have experienced technical difficulties with my laptop which meant that, although I had managed to read the application and witness statements in advance of the hearing, I had not had the opportunity to read the caselaw and during the course of the hearing, it became clear to me that I needed to do that.

[3]The Claimants bring a claim for a delay in a flight with the Defendant. The Defendant has filed an acknowledgment of service indicating that it intends to contest jurisdiction in this claim.

Background

[4]Passengers booking flights with the Defendant agree to the Defendant’s general terms and conditions of carriage. Passengers are informed during the booking process that said terms and conditions apply and are able to read them in full via a hyperlink. They must positively accept that they agreed to the terms and conditions by placing a tick in a box before clicking the button to purchase their ticket.

[5]The Defendant submits that Claimants have failed to comply with its terms and conditions. The following terms are of particular relevance to this application:

“2.3.1 Except as otherwise provided by the Convention or applicable law, your contract of carriage with us, these terms and regulations shall be governed by and interpreted in accordance with the laws of Ireland. 2.3.2 You are entitled to bring a claim against us in your local court, except that Irish courts shall have exclusive jurisdiction in relation to claims under EU Regulation 261/2004 where you have not complied with clauses 15.2.1 to 15.2.8 of these Terms and in relation to non-consumer (ie business to business) claims.” “15.2.2 Passengers must submit claims directly to us and allow us 14 days or such time as prescribed by applicable law (whichever is the lesser) to respond directly to them before engaging third parties to claim on their behalf. Claims may be submitted here and must include details of a bank account held personally by the passenger submitting the claim. If we fail to respond within the time prescribed, or passengers are unhappy with our response, passengers may engage third parties to claim / receive payment on their behalf…. 15.2.7 Passengers are not prohibited by this clause from consulting legal or other third party advisers before submitting their claim directly to us.”

[6]The Defendant’s case is, as per the statement of Ms Hadjari that “since the Claimant has not contact (sic) Ryanair directly before raising this matter to court, Ryanair consider it as non- compliance for Article 15.2” of the terms and conditions.”

[7]The Claimants have confirmed that a claim was submitted to the Defendant but that they did so via a third party, Flightright GmbH. The Claimants have provided a document generated by the submission of that claim by the Defendant which states that “your request is submitted” and that “your request is currently under review with our team”. The Defendant does not now dispute that the claim has been submitted but argues that the Claimants should have submitted the claim to the Defendant itself and not via a third party. The issue to be determined is therefore, in fact, quite narrow, whether the Claimants could submit a valid claim to the Defendant via a third party. If they could, they will have complied with the Defendant’s terms and conditions and they are entitled to bring a claim against the Defendant in their local court. I note that this claim was issued in the Civil National Business Centre. It was subsequently transferred to Caernarfon Justice Centre being the Claimants’ local court, within the jurisdiction of Wales and England.

[8]All have agreed during the course of the hearing that I simply need to address the issue of whether the Claimants were entitled to use a third party, namely Flightright, to submit its claim to the Defendant or whether the Claimants themselves had to do so. If they were, the claim is validly made, the requisite response has not been provided by the Defendant and the claim can proceed in the Claimants’ local court.

[9]The wording of Article 15.2.2 appears to be clear that “passengers must submit claims directly to us and allow us 14 days…..to respond directly to them before engaging third parties to claim on their behalf.” Counsel for the Defendant submits that the Claimants would have had a valid claim had they made the claim themselves as opposed to via Flightright. As it was a case which would have been settled, there was nothing complicated about it. He relies on the judgment of HHJ Wood KC, the Designated Civil Judge in Liverpool, in Menditta v Ryanair DAC (Case number: C03LV701) dated 25 April 2017. Now that I have had the opportunity to read this very detailed judgment, I do not understand its relevance to this application, despite Counsel for the Defendant’s efforts to persuade me otherwise. It simply does not deal with the point with which I am concerned. It is interesting to note that in that case, Ryanair had objected “to the fact that a sizeable proportion of the compensation is payable to the intermediary claims harvester, believed to be up to 50%, in circumstances where any claim for compensation could be resolved by direct contact with the airline”. HHJ Wood KC goes on to say that “I was not interested in either the reason for the jurisdiction issue being taken, the motivation of Ryanair, or the commercial and profit-making policies of the Claimant’s solicitors. This would distract me from the pure and somewhat complex legal issue which must be resolved. In any event, whilst altruism or commercial practicality of the Defendant is commendable, there is the countervailing consideration that many passengers who bring these claims are quite happy to cede a sizeable chunk of their compensation to an intermediary, to avoid the hassle of having to go through any process themselves.” In fact that case relates to the jurisdiction argument as it was being argued on behalf of the Claimants that they should be entitled to bring a claim in their home jurisdiction even though Ryanair is a company based in the Republic of Ireland. He concluded that the system was such that solicitors based in Wales and England would be able to issue proceedings in courts in the Republic of Ireland. He was not addressed and did not deal with the situation with which I am faced here, namely the use of a third party to make the initial claim to Ryanair. However, he makes an interesting comment which indicates that he does not appear to support the approach of Ryanair in insisting that the initial claim is not submitted by a third party. For instance, he states that “if clarity and certainty are the watchwords for identifying jurisdiction, this is hardly likely to be achieved by the capricious approach which may be adopted by Ryanair to invoking the jurisdiction clause depending on whether the passenger has involved a claims harvester as an intermediary at an early stage.”

[10]Solicitor agent for the Claimants relied on a Court of Appeal judgment in Dore and others v Easyjet Airline Company Ltd

(2022) EWCA Civ 1553

. Counsel for the Defendant seeks to argue that this judgment is not as relevant to this application as the judgment of HHJ Wood KC in that it relates to a different airline and appears to address claims which are not as straightforward as that of the Claimants where the claims would have been settled by the Defendant had the claim been made direct and not via Flightright. I disagree. It addresses the very issue with which I am troubled, namely the use of an intermediary to make the initial claim to Ryanair. In Dore, the Court of Appeal specifically endorses the approach of Lewison LJ in Bott and Co Solicitors Ltd v Ryanair DAC

(2019) EWCA Civ 143

. I note that in Bott, the judge below had held that the airline’s scheme was a straightforward and easy to use process. That was upheld on appeal. In Dore, I note that “neither party challenged this reasoning in Bott v Ryanair and I agree with all of it.”

[11]Birss LJ (as he then was) then proceeds to say the following in his judgment:

“40. A particular issue before us is the extent to which the airline’s terms permit a passenger to have help filling in the online form. A long running submission by the respondent in the present case was that since the appellants had employed Flightright to access the online portal for them they had not submitted their claim “directly”(as required by clause 19.6) and had “paid no attention to the contractual term at all”….. 41. In my judgment Lewison LJ dealt with this, and explained why such a submission is wrong in paragraph 72 of Bott v Ryanair as follows: 72. (….) If a passenger needs help in filling in the on-line form there is nothing to prevent that. On the contrary, clause 15.2.7 permits it. All that the passenger has to do is to press the send or submit button. And even that could be done by a third party, provided that the claim is made in the name of the passenger. At most the delay in processing a claim is 30 days, which is no longer than the response time that Bott itself requests. After that, a passenger is free to process a claim in any way he chooses, with or without the assistance of third parties.” 72. (….) If a passenger needs help in filling in the on-line form there is nothing to prevent that. On the contrary, clause 15.2.7 permits it. All that the passenger has to do is to press the send or submit button. And even that could be done by a third party, provided that the claim is made in the name of the passenger. At most the delay in processing a claim is 30 days, which is no longer than the response time that Bott itself requests. After that, a passenger is free to process a claim in any way he chooses, with or without the assistance of third parties.” 42. Even if that matter was free from authority, I would hold that passengers are entitled to have someone else access the online portal on their behalf and thereby make a claim in their name. That other person could be a friend or family member, or it could be a claims handling company or solicitor engaged for that purpose. A claim made that way would be “direct” as that word is used in the conditions of carriage. Furthermore if the true construction of the word “direct” would not permit this activity, then it could be a material obstacle in passenger’s path and would be unlawful and ineffective. The fact that an airline may prefer it for passengers not to engage a claims handling company at that early stage to use the online portal is irrelevant.”

[12]That could not be clearer, in my judgment, and I fail to understand why the Defendant has defended this action in the manner in which it has. It would have known about the judgment in Bott as it was the Defendant. I note that whilst Bott did eventually end up going to the Supreme Court, the argument related to whether the solicitors acting for the claimant were entitled to an equitable lien for their costs, not to the issues with which I am concerned. The Defendant would certainly have known about the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Dore. That judgment could not be clearer. The complexity of the claim is completely irrelevant. The use of a company such as Flightright costs nothing to the Defendant. I assume it takes a commission from any damages it recovers on behalf of a passenger. As HHJ Wood KC said in Menditta, many passengers may be happy to “cede a sizeable chunk of their compensation to an intermediary, to avoid the hassle of having to go through any process themselves.” It is not for the airline to dictate when they choose to use a third party or intermediary.

[13]The Court of Appeal could not be clearer in endorsing the ability of passengers to use third parties to make initial claims to airlines. Given that, the Claimants in this instance were perfectly entitled to use Flightright to submit the initial claim to the Defendant. The Defendant did not respond in a timely manner and therefore the Claimant were entitled to issue proceedings in the courts of Wales and England, as opposed to the Republic of Ireland.

[14]I accordingly dismiss the Defendant’s application. Her Honour Judge Owen