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Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017

Other commercial matters - Carriage of goods - Liability under contracts of successive carriage

270: Contracts of successive carriage by air

You could also call this:

“Rules for when multiple airlines carry your things on one trip”

When you have goods carried by air in a journey that involves more than one carrier, it’s called a contract of successive carriage. This means the journey is done in stages by different carriers, but it’s treated as one single trip.

For these kinds of contracts, most of the rules about carrier liability don’t apply. However, there are still some rules that limit how much the carriers have to pay if something goes wrong.

If your goods are lost or damaged while more than one carrier is responsible for them, you can ask any of those carriers to pay for the loss or damage. They are all responsible together.

This is true even if it’s not clear which carrier caused the problem. But if a carrier can prove that the loss or damage didn’t happen while they were in charge of the goods, they don’t have to pay.

These rules are part of a bigger set of rules about carrying goods, so there might be other things that affect how they work.

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"Rules for when your hand luggage gets lost or damaged during a trip"

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"Rules for who's in charge of your stuff when different delivery people handle it"

Part 5 Other commercial matters
Carriage of goods: Liability under contracts of successive carriage

270Contracts of successive carriage by air

  1. Nothing in sections 248 to 269 (other than sections 259 and 260, which limit carriers’ liability) applies to a contract of successive carriage.

  2. The successive carriers under a contract of successive carriage are jointly and severally liable to the contracting party for the loss of or damage to any goods that occurs while the carriers are jointly responsible for the goods.

  3. Subsection (2) applies whether or not the loss or damage is caused wholly or partly by the carriers or by any of them.

  4. However, a successive carrier is not liable under subsection (2) if the successive carrier proves that the loss or damage did not occur while the successive carrier was separately responsible for the goods.

  5. Subsections (2) to (4) are subject to the rest of this subpart.

  6. In this section and section 271,—

    contract of successive carriage means a contract or contracts for the carriage of any goods exclusively by air, where the carriage—

    1. is or is to be performed by 2 or more carriers in successive stages; and
      1. is regarded by the parties as a single operation

        successive carrier means a carrier referred to in the definition of contract of successive carriage.

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