The Montreal Convention: What It Covers and What It Means for Your Claim

Does the Montreal Convention Cover Your Flight? What It Is and Which Flights It Covers

The treaty's formal name is the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air, done at Montreal on 28 May 1999. It replaced the Warsaw Convention of 1929, the older treaty on airline liability, along with its later amendments. The United States ratified the Montreal Convention, and it entered into force for the United States in 2003. Many countries have since joined it.

The Convention applies to international carriage in one of two shapes. The first is a journey whose place of departure and place of destination are in two different countries that are parties to the treaty. The second is a journey that begins and ends in the same party country but includes an agreed stopping place in another country. A purely domestic U.S. flight, such as one between two American cities with no international stop, is not covered.

That threshold question carries real weight. If the Convention applies, its liability rules, deadlines and list of courts govern the claim. If it does not, U.S. federal and state law shape the claim instead. The answer usually turns on the itinerary as a whole, including connecting legs booked as one trip.

For someone in this position, the ticket record, booking confirmation and boarding passes are often the first documents worth gathering, because together they show the full itinerary and which set of rules is likely in play. An attorney can help read that itinerary against the treaty's two shapes.

When an Airline Answers for an Injury or Death: Article 17

Article 17 of the Montreal Convention governs passenger death and bodily injury. Under it, the carrier is liable for the death or bodily injury of a passenger if the event that caused it was an accident that took place on board the aircraft or in the course of embarking or disembarking.

The word "accident" does a great deal of work. In Air France v. Saks, 470 U.S. 392 (1985), the U.S. Supreme Court described an accident as an unexpected or unusual event or happening that is external to the passenger. Saks was decided under the Warsaw Convention, and U.S. courts apply its definition to Montreal Convention Article 17. A reaction that comes only from a passenger's own condition during a normal flight may fall outside that definition, while something that happens to the passenger from outside may fall within it. Whether a specific event qualifies depends on the facts.

Article 17 claims run on a two-tier structure. Up to a threshold set in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), an international unit of account maintained by the International Monetary Fund, the carrier cannot escape liability by showing it was not at fault. Above that threshold, the carrier may limit or avoid liability only by proving the damage was not due to its own negligence or wrongful act, or that of its servants or agents, or that it was solely due to the negligence or wrongful act of a third party. The threshold is reviewed periodically, and its dollar value moves with exchange rates.

For a family after a death, or a passenger with serious injuries, the second tier matters most. It places the burden of proof on the airline rather than on the injured person. A claim still has to show an accident within Article 17, a bodily injury or death, and a link between the two.

Those three elements suggest what may be worth collecting: an account of where the event happened (on board, boarding or leaving the aircraft), what happened from outside the passenger, and medical records tying the injury to it. Whether an event counts as an "accident" is often the first question an attorney can help sort out.

Baggage and Cargo: What the Convention Limits and What It Does Not

Article 17(2) covers baggage. For checked baggage, the carrier is liable for destruction, loss or damage if the event took place on board the aircraft or while the baggage was in the carrier's charge. For unchecked baggage, meaning carry-on bags and personal items, the carrier is liable only if the damage resulted from its fault or that of its servants or agents.

Article 22(2) caps baggage liability at a per-passenger limit set in SDRs. That cap rises only if the passenger made a special declaration of interest in delivery at the time the bag was handed over at check-in and paid any supplementary sum the carrier required. Without that declaration, the per-passenger cap generally governs, and its dollar equivalent moves with IMF exchange rates.

If goods were shipped rather than carried as baggage, a separate rule applies: under Article 18, the carrier is liable for destruction, loss of or damage to cargo when the event occurred during the carriage by air, and Article 22 sets a distinct SDR-based limit for cargo.

What this means for a traveler is that the value of lost or damaged belongings and the amount the Convention allows can differ, and the difference often depends on whether a declaration was made at check-in. Baggage and cargo claims also carry short written notice periods under Article 31, explained below. When a serious incident also destroys belongings, the baggage portion is usually the smaller part of the claim, but it follows these separate rules. Receipts, check-in records, baggage tags and any written complaint to the carrier are the kinds of records that may be weighed in deciding how to proceed.

Delay Claims Under the Convention and Their Limits

A delay is treated differently from an injury. Article 19 makes the carrier liable for damage caused by delay in the carriage of passengers, baggage or cargo. The carrier is not liable, though, if it proves that it and its servants and agents took all measures that could reasonably be required to avoid the damage, or that it was impossible for them to take such measures.

For a delayed passenger, Article 22(1) sets a per-passenger cap in SDRs; for delayed bags, Article 22(2) applies the baggage limit. Put plainly, a delay claim faces both a ceiling and the airline's reasonable-measures defense, so it is narrower than an injury claim under Article 17.

A delay is also not the same as a cancellation. The Convention addresses damage caused by delay; it does not create the fixed, set-amount cancellation compensation some readers know from European passenger rules.

For someone who lost money or time to a delay, what is at stake is whether the delay caused actual, provable damage and whether the airline can show it did what could reasonably be required. Records of extra costs and any explanation the carrier gave for the delay may help in weighing whether a claim is worth pursuing.

Filing Deadlines and Notice Requirements That Affect Your Claim

Article 31 sets written notice periods for baggage and cargo. A complaint about damage to checked baggage must be made in writing to the carrier within 7 days from the date of receipt; for cargo damage, within 14 days from receipt. A complaint about delay must be made within 21 days from the date the baggage or cargo was placed at the person's disposal. If no complaint is made within these periods, no action lies against the carrier, except where the carrier is guilty of fraud.

Article 35 sets the period for bringing a lawsuit. The right to damages is extinguished if an action is not brought within two years, counted from the date of arrival at the destination, the date on which the aircraft ought to have arrived, or the date on which the carriage stopped. U.S. courts have generally treated Article 35 as a condition of liability rather than an ordinary statute of limitations, which means it is applied strictly and is not usually extended the way some state deadlines can be.

For a grieving family or an injured passenger, these dates can feel like one more weight. They are stated here as the treaty frames them; how they apply to a particular trip depends on its dates and facts. A conversation with an attorney can cover which period applies and when it began.

Can You Sue in a U.S. Court? The Five Jurisdictions Under Article 33

Article 33 lists where a lawsuit may be brought. A damages action may be brought, in the territory of a party country, in the courts of the carrier's domicile, the carrier's principal place of business, the place where the carrier has a place of business through which the contract was made, or the place of destination.

The fifth place, in Article 33(2), applies only to claims for a passenger's death or injury. It allows suit in the country where the passenger had his or her principal and permanent residence at the time of the accident, provided the carrier operates services for carriage of passengers by air to or from that country and conducts business there from premises it leases or owns. Under the Convention, a claim must be brought in one of these listed places.

For many U.S. residents hurt abroad, the fifth jurisdiction can open a path to an American court. In U.S. federal courts, 28 U.S.C. § 1331 gives the district courts "original jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States," and Montreal Convention claims are claims under a treaty.

Which forum is available turns on the carrier, the ticket and the passenger's residence. Questions worth raising with an attorney include where the ticket was bought, the final destination, where the carrier is based and whether it flies to and does business in the United States. For a broader look at claims against carriers, see the site's page on airline injury claims.

How U.S. State Law Interacts With the Convention — and Where It Does Not

Preemption means a higher law displaces a lower one on the same subject. In El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui Yuan Tseng, 525 U.S. 155 (1999), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Warsaw Convention exclusively governs claims within its scope, so a passenger cannot avoid the treaty's conditions and limits by suing under state tort law for the same harm. U.S. courts have applied that reasoning to the Montreal Convention.

In practice, a passenger injury, death, baggage or cargo claim on a covered international flight generally runs through the Convention, not through a state negligence theory. For covered claims, a state wrongful-death statute does not override the Convention's conditions and limits. The site's page on aviation wrongful death explains how death claims work more broadly.

The edges are contested. Claims that do not arise from an Article 17 accident, or claims for purely mental injury without bodily injury, where U.S. courts have found the Convention does not provide recovery, raise hard questions about whether state law can step in. Courts have litigated that boundary extensively.

Where the Convention does not govern, state law does, and limitation periods, comparative-fault rules, damages rules and wrongful-death rules differ across the fifty states. For a family or passenger, the practical question is which framework a claim falls under, since that decides which deadlines and limits apply. That is often one of the first things an attorney can help sort out.

What the Convention Does Not Cover — and When Other Law May Apply

Article 1(1) limits the treaty to international carriage of persons, baggage or cargo performed by aircraft for reward, and to gratuitous carriage performed by an air transport undertaking. A free flight given by someone who is not an air transport undertaking, such as a friend flying a private plane, falls outside it. Mail is also outside: Article 2(2) leaves it to the rules governing postal services. And as noted above, a passenger on a purely domestic U.S. flight is not covered.

The Convention also governs claims against the contracting or actual carrier, not everyone connected to a flight. Claims against an aircraft manufacturer, a component maker or a maintenance company sit outside it. Those claims, often framed as product liability (responsibility for a defective product) or negligence, are governed by U.S. state law, and the rules differ by state. Related pages cover aircraft maintenance negligence and charter flight crashes.

What is at stake is that a single accident can involve both layers: a Convention claim against the carrier and state-law claims against others, each with its own rules. Whether any party is responsible depends on what happened, who controlled what and which law applies. If you would like to talk through how the treaty and state law may fit together after an international flight, you can request a case evaluation.