Key takeaways
- International aviation is built on a single-accountability model: passengers have one contract with the airline and one clear path to assistance and compensation.
- Proposals on “shared responsibility” seek to shift legal and financial liability from airlines to airports and other service providers, rather than strengthen operational collaboration.
- Shifting liability would undermine the Montreal Convention, create legal uncertainty and make it less clear who is responsible when disruptions occur.
- ICAO’s 42nd Assembly recognised that “shared accountability” should focus on collaboration, not passenger compensation or legal liability, as airports and ANSPs have no contractual relationship with passengers.
- As consumer protection returns to the agenda at ICAO The Seventh Worldwide Air Transport Conference (ATConf/7), preserving clear accountability while strengthening operational collaboration should remain the guiding principle.
Background
For decades, international aviation has operated under a clear principle: the passenger has one contract, one point of accountability and one clear path to assistance and compensation.
That principle is now being challenged.
Recent proposals promoting “shared responsibility” seek to shift legal and financial liability from airlines to airports and other service providers. While presented as a response to the increasing complexity of the aviation ecosystem, these proposals are, in reality, about shifting legal and financial liability rather than sharing operational responsibility.
Replacing the existing framework would not strengthen passenger rights. It would undermine the legal certainty established by the Montreal Convention, create inconsistencies with national passenger rights regimes and make it more difficult for passengers to understand who is responsible when things go wrong, not easier.
Consumer protection should not be used to redistribute commercial risk across the aviation value chain. Its purpose is much simpler: to ensure that passengers receive clear, timely and effective assistance whenever their journey is disrupted.
International law already provides a clear framework
Consumer protection in aviation is founded on a simple legal principle: responsibility follows the contract.
Under the Montreal Convention, the airline is responsible to the passenger because it is the airline that enters into the contract of carriage. The Convention deliberately establishes a single-liability framework by making the carrier responsible for passenger claims while preserving its right to seek recourse from third parties where their actions caused the disruption. This distinction keeps passenger rights separate from commercial disputes between industry stakeholders.
This principle is reflected across national and regional passenger-rights regimes. Whether under EU261, UK261, Canada’s Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR) or consumer protection frameworks across Africa, Latin America and Asia-Pacific, passengers seek assistance and compensation from the airline. If another stakeholder contributed to the disruption, existing commercial agreements and legal mechanisms already provide airlines with a right of recourse without transferring commercial disputes into the passenger relationship.
Shifting legal liability away from airlines would fundamentally alter this internationally recognised legal framework rather than improve it.
Shifting liability would create confusion, not better consumer protection
Consumer protection succeeds when accountability is clear.
Passengers know who sold them the ticket, who is responsible for providing information and assistance and where to seek compensation when their rights apply.
That clarity would be weakened if responsibility were spread across multiple organisations.
Questions this would raise for passengers
- Would passengers have to pursue the airline, the airport, the ANSP, the ground handlers, or other elements of the aviation ecosystem?
- Who would determine responsibility where delays result from multiple operational factors?
- Which national regime would apply when disruptions involve several jurisdictions?
- Would compensation depend on lengthy investigations into operational performance?
These are not theoretical questions. They are the practical consequences of moving away from a single point of accountability.
The more complex aviation operations become, the greater the need for a consumer protection framework that shields passengers from that complexity; not one that exposes them to it.
A policy intended to strengthen passenger rights should never leave passengers wondering who is responsible for helping them.
Collaboration should be strengthened: not liability shifted
None of this suggests that airports or other stakeholders are free from responsibility.
Airports invest billions of dollars in infrastructure, technology and operational resilience. They work every day with airlines, ANSPs, governments and ground handlers to improve performance through collaborative decision-making, capacity planning, emergency preparedness and business continuity planning. Programmes such as ACI World’s Airport Service Quality (ASQ) demonstrate the airport industry’s commitment to continuously improving the passenger experience despite having no contractual relationship with passengers.
ACI has consistently supported stronger collaboration across the aviation ecosystem because better coordination leads to better outcomes for passengers.
However, stronger collaboration does not require shifting legal or financial liability.
Operational cooperation and contractual accountability serve different purposes. One improves system performance by preventing disruption before it reaches the passenger; the other protects consumers by providing legal certainty when disruption cannot be avoided.
Confusing the two risks achieving neither.
ICAO has already recognised the difference
This distinction was recognised during the 42nd ICAO Assembly.
While Member States supported reviewing ICAO’s Core Principles on Consumer Protection and developing complementary best practices, they also agreed that any future consideration of shared accountability should not include passenger compensation or legal liability because airports, ANSPs and other service providers do not maintain direct contractual relationships with passengers. Instead, future work should focus on improving cooperation among stakeholders to deliver better consumer outcomes.
Importantly, during the Assembly discussions, the IATA representative clarified the intent behind the concept:
“I’d like to take the opportunity just to clarify … on the principle of shared accountability. This is not based around compensation or liability, but about the principle that prevention is better than cure, and the idea that consumer protection is best served by avoiding delays and cancellations and disruption in the first place, and the idea of collaboration amongst all stakeholders, government and industry, in order to better serve consumers. I think it’s important to clarify that for the benefit of my colleagues from industry.”
That clarification is entirely consistent with ACI’s long-standing position. Airports have always supported stronger collaboration because preventing disruption through better coordination and operational resilience is preferable to compensating passengers after the event.
Unfortunately, in practice, we increasingly observe airlines and airline associations using the concept of “shared responsibility” precisely to shift financial liability rather than strengthen collaboration.
This debate is far from over.
The Seventh Worldwide Air Transport Conference (ATConf/7), to be held in November 2026, will be ICAO’s first global air transport policy conference since 2013 and the Organisation’s most significant policy-making event on the economic development and regulation of international air transport. Consumer protection is one of the Conference’s priority agenda items, making it likely that proposals related to “shared responsibility” or “shared accountability” will continue to feature prominently in future policy discussions.
As industry, States and policymakers prepare for these discussions, it will be essential to distinguish between strengthening operational collaboration and redefining legal and financial accountability.
The aviation community should therefore remain vigilant.
Consumer protection must continue to evolve, but it should evolve in ways that reinforce clarity, consistency and legal certainty; not in ways that blur accountability or shift contractual obligations from the airline to parties that have no legal relationship with the passenger.
Conclusion: clear accountability is the best protection for passengers
The aviation industry should continue working together to improve operational resilience and deliver a better passenger experience. Stronger collaboration between airlines, airports, ANSPs and governments is essential to achieving that objective.
But collaboration should not be confused with shifting legal and/or financial liability.
The Montreal Convention and the overwhelming majority of national passenger-rights regimes are built on a simple and effective principle: one contract, one accountable party and one clear path to assistance and compensation. Airlines remain free to pursue recovery from third parties through existing contractual and legal mechanisms without transferring those disputes to passengers.
In practice, “shared responsibility” is an anti-consumer concept. It blurs accountability, creates confusion and ultimately weakens consumer protection.
The future of consumer protection should focus on enhancing the passenger experience—making it simpler, faster and more predictable—not on shifting legal responsibility across the aviation value chain.
Clear accountability has served passengers, regulators and the aviation industry well for decades. Preserving that principle while strengthening collaboration across the aviation ecosystem remains the best way to protect consumers, maintain confidence in international aviation and support a fair, consistent and globally harmonised regulatory framework.
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