Carlos Lopez By Carlos Lopez

Flights & Travel · International

Codeshare Flights and Alliance Networks: Jurisdiction and Carrier Liability under the Montreal Convention

Knowing which airline is liable is only half the picture on an international codeshare — the treaty also gives you a genuine choice of which country's courts can hear your case.

Context

For how to identify which carrier — marketing or operating — is actually liable for your specific claim, see our dedicated codeshare liability guide. This article assumes you've already identified the right carrier, and focuses on something that guide doesn't cover: where you're legally allowed to bring your claim once you know who it's against.

The Legal Framework: A Single Treaty for Alliance Travel

International air travel across global airline alliances — Star Alliance, Oneworld, SkyTeam — is governed by the Montreal Convention of 1999 (MC99), ratified by over 130 state parties. MC99 creates a unified legal framework for international carriage by air, overriding inconsistent domestic contract laws for genuinely international itineraries.

Article 22 sets the strict liability limits, denominated in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs): baggage loss or damage is capped at 1,519 SDR per passenger, and passenger delay is capped at 6,303 SDR per passenger — both effective 28 December 2024 following the treaty's five-year inflation review. (If you see 1,288 SDR or 5,346 SDR cited anywhere, those are the pre-2024 figures and no longer current.)

Article 33: The Five Jurisdictional Forums

This is the part of MC99 most passengers never learn about, and it can genuinely change your legal strategy. Under Article 33, an action for damages — for a delayed passenger or lost luggage on an international journey — can be brought, at the passenger's own choice, in any one of five specific jurisdictions:

  1. Domicile of the carrier — where the airline is legally incorporated.
  2. Principal place of business of the carrier.
  3. Place of business where the contract was made — where the ticket was actually issued or purchased.
  4. Place of destination — the final airport on your single ticket itinerary.
  5. Principal and permanent residence of the passenger — but this fifth option applies only to bodily injury or death claims, not delay or baggage claims.

The strategic value here is real: because Article 33 allows filing at your place of destination, a passenger holding a United Airlines ticket originating in Tokyo and ending in New York — but physically operated by ANA — can legally file an MC99 damage claim in a U.S. federal court, even though the operating carrier is headquartered in Japan. You're not limited to suing in the operating carrier's home country.

Baggage Claims: Joint and Several Liability

For baggage loss, damage, or delay specifically, MC99's provisions on joint and several contractual liability (Articles 39–45) allow you to direct your claim against either the marketing carrier or the operating carrier — you're not restricted to one or the other the way you effectively are for a delay compensation claim under EC261/UK261, where the operating carrier is the correct target. This gives you more practical flexibility on where to send a baggage claim specifically.

Global alliance baggage handling agreements typically assign preliminary operational responsibility to the last operating carrier that physically handled a given segment of your itinerary — a useful starting point even though you retain the legal right to address either carrier.

What This Means for Your Claim

If your claim genuinely has to go to court rather than resolving directly with the airline, don't assume you're stuck filing in the operating carrier's home country. Check whether your place of destination — or where you originally bought the ticket — gives you a more practical, accessible forum. This matters most for higher-value claims where the cost and inconvenience of foreign litigation would otherwise be a real barrier.

Our Lost Luggage Inventory Template and letter generator both work regardless of which forum you eventually choose — build your evidence file first, and decide on jurisdiction only if a formal claim becomes necessary.

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