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The Carriage by Air (Revision of Limits of Liability) (Montreal Convention) Notice 2009 will be gazetted on Friday (December 11) to announce revisions to be made to the limits of liability in respect of the carriage of passengers, baggage and cargo specified in the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air (the Montreal Convention) starting from December 30.
To be in line with the revised limits specified in the Montreal Convention, the limits of liability specified in Schedules 1A and 3 to the Carriage by Air Ordinance (Cap 500) will also be revised correspondingly to the same level and become effective on the same date.
A Transport and Housing Bureau spokesman said today (December 9) that airlines operating scheduled services to and from Hong Kong, including all Air Operator's Certificate holders and the Board of Airline Representatives in Hong Kong, have been briefed on the review of limits of liability conducted by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the revisions to the limits of liability.
The spokesman said, "According to Article 24 of the Montreal Convention, the limits of liability in respect of the carriage of passengers, baggage and cargo as stipulated in Articles 21 and 22 of the Montreal Convention are subject to regular review by the ICAO every five years based on a built-in mechanism. Under the mechanism, the liability limits will be revised if an inflation factor exceeds 10% to enable timely updating of the liability limits to reflect changing prices."
As advised by the ICAO recently, the first review has been completed and concluded that the inflation factor is 13.1% and the limits of liability will be revised with effect from December 30.
Details of the revision are as follows -
(a) the limit for the first tier of liability for each passenger for damage sustained in case of death or bodily injury of a passenger is increased from 100,000 Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) as defined by the International Monetary Fund to 113,100 SDRs (see Article 21(1) and (2) of the Montreal Convention);
(b) the limit of liability for each passenger in relation to damage caused by delay in the carriage of persons is increased from 4,150 SDRs to 4,694 SDRs (see Article 22(1) of the Montreal Convention);
(c) the limit of liability for each passenger in case of destruction, loss, damage or delay in relation to the carriage of baggage is increased from 1,000 SDRs to 1,131 SDRs (see Article 22(2) of the Montreal Convention); and
(d) the limit of liability in case of destruction, loss, damage or delay in relation to the carriage of cargo is increased from 17 SDRs per kilogramme to 19 SDRs per kilogramme (see Article 22(3) of the Montreal Convention).
Hong Kong has implemented the Montreal Convention through the Ordinance and the provisions of the Convention are set out in Schedule 1A to the Ordinance. Certain provisions of the Montreal Convention have also been applied to non-international carriage to, from or in Hong Kong and they are set out in Schedule 3 to the Ordinance.
Ends/Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Issued at HKT 18:19
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