Air carrier's liability for the safety of passengers during COVID-19 pandemic

The paper aims to determine the situations when the air carrier is liable for the transmission of COVID-19 in the course of air transport. It must be emphasized here that the carrier's liability results from bodily injury or death that are caused by an accident on board an aircraft or during the operations of embarking or disembarking. Accordingly, in this paper, we addressed if the transmission of COVID-19 an ‘accident’ within the Conventions' meaning and the period of air carrier's liability for passengers' contraction of COVID-19, taking into consideration the exoneration of air carrier's liability in COVID-19 cases. In addition, this paper will study the scope of the safety measures as required by ICAO to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and therefore protect the passengers' safety. In our opinion, we found that the estimate is left to the judge because the assessment of this matter is based on an objective criterion based on the reasonable person test and the fact of each case.