Not a lot of detail in that piece on how a US suit would be heard by a US judge, unless there were American victims?
Yup. There were three Americans onboard.
According to the Montreal Convention, a plaintiff may choose to bring suit in any one of five different jurisdictions:
- The domicile of the carrier
- The carrier's principal place of business
- Where the carriage contract was made (*)
- At the destination, and
- Where the passenger has his/her "principal and permanent" residence (*)
(*) Assuming the carrier does business there either directly or indirectly through a commercial agreement (codeshare, etc)
That last jurisdiction, the so called "fifth jurisdiction", only applies when there is damage resulting from death or injury of passenger (which is obviously the case here).
Note that the
citizenship of the passenger does not come into play; Only the "principal and permanent" place of residence matters.