Issue: How do you determine if an airline is doing business in the U.S. under the Warsaw Convention and agency principles?
| Area of Law: | Aviation & Transportation Law, Business Organizations & Contracts |
| Keywords: | Doing business in the United States; Airline; Warsaw Convention |
| Jurisdiction: | Federal, New York |
| Cited Cases: | 3 N.Y.2d 1003; 147 N.E.2d 732; 194 F.3d 288; 149 N.Y.S.2d 335; 452 F.2d 798; 877 F.2d 793 |
| Cited Statutes: | Warsaw Convention's Article 28 |
| Date: | 01/01/2001 |
The single most important case regarding doing business in the United States, and on whether the appropriate venue is in the United States, is Eck v. United Arab Airlines, Inc., 360 F.2d 804 (2d Cir. 1966). The Eck case has ben cited by numerous courts in jurisdictions throughout the United States. The issue in Eck was whether United Arab Airlines (UAA) had a place of business through which the subject contract was made in the United States for purposes of the Warsaw Convention’s Article 28. Eck expanded the traditional notion of "place of business." The court found that UAA transacted business in New York because it actively sought to solicit passengers there and it engaged in promotional ventures that were designed to increase UAA’s bookings in New York and throughout the U.S.
The toughest question facing the Eck court was whether Article 28 allowed the maintenance of a suit when an airline had a place of business in the country but the passenger purchased his ticket from another airline. In holding that an airline that had a place of business and permitted its tickets to be sold in the country consented to both jurisdiction and venue within the country, the court noted that interline agreements and arrangements between air carriers were not anticipated when the Warsaw Convention was drafted. However, even if one airline sold only one ticket on behalf of another airline, there would still be an agency relationship of sorts. The airline office that issued the […]