In Iberia (C-218/24), the Court of Justice held on 16 October 2025 that a passenger’s companion animal lost during international air carriage falls within “baggage” under Article 17(2) of the 1999 Montreal Convention. Accordingly, the liability cap under Article 22(2) applies unless a “special declaration” was made. The ruling is arguably not compelled by text or method. It reflects an industry-protective classification choice that foregrounds carrier exposure and embraces an “economic paralysis” justification, while side-stepping both the ordinary meaning consequence that “baggage” denotes objects and the EU legal context recognising animals as sentient beings. Furthermore, turning dogs into luggage neglects the broader social reality where the loss of companion animals foreseeably causes moral harm to their human guardians. Unfortunately, the Court did not opt for a legally sound alternative that was available within the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) canons and in line with the Court’s own approach to incorporated international treaties.

The facts and the question referred for a preliminary ruling

On 22 October 2019, Felicísima travelled with her mother and her dog, Mona, on an Iberia flight from Buenos Aires to Barcelona (paras 14-15). Mona, consigned to the hold, escaped while being carried to the aircraft and could not be recovered (paras 15-16). Felicísima sought EUR 5,000 in compensation for the non-material harm caused by her loss; Iberia accepted liability but invoked the Montreal Convention’s baggage cap (para 17). The Juzgado de lo Mercantil no 4 de Madrid referred a question asking whether Article 17(2) of the Montreal Convention, read with Article 22(2), should be understood to exclude companion animals from the concept of “baggage”; observing notably that a special declaration of interest concerns material value and cannot capture the psychological distress resulting from a companion animal’s loss, which cannot be compared to that caused by the loss of a “mere collection of things” corresponding to the concept of “baggage” (paras 18, 21-22; paras 19-20).

The judgment

The court proceeds from uniform and autonomous interpretation, anchored in the VCLT (Articles 31-32). It acknowledges that the ordinary meaning of “baggage” refers to “items”, and even to “objects” (paras 28-29), but nonetheless paradoxically concludes that companion animals are not excluded from that concept (para 34). At the same time, it takes this opportunity to foreclose any analogy with “passengers,” relying on the triad “persons/baggage/cargo” in Article 1 of the Montreal Convention and the travaux préparatoires (paras 32-33). The outcome is then stabilised by reference to Montreal Convention’s preambular “equitable balance,” previous case law on the absolute and all-inclusive nature of the baggage cap, and the availability of a “special declaration” (paras 35-42). Finally, Article 13 TFEU recognises animals as sentient beings and requires the Union and Member States to pay “full regard” to animal welfare when formulating and implementing transport and related policies. However, the Court holds that this provision does not call the interpretation into question, provided that animal welfare requirements are paid “full regard” during transport (paras 43-45).

Three aspects of this path are salient. First, the Court explicitly accepts that the term “baggage” in ordinary usage denotes objects (paras 28-29). Yet, it declines to draw from this the consequence that sentient beings cannot be regarded as baggage (para 34). Second, it decisively treats the relationship between the interests of the industry and the passengers as an “equitable balance”, invoking the need to avoid compensation burdens that could “undermine, and even paralyse, the economic activity of [air] carriers” (para 38). Third, it confines the relevance of EU primary law, narrowing Article 13 TFEU’s role to transport-stage welfare logistics, with no influence on legal classification or redress (paras 43-45).

Ordinary meaning without consequence

The judgment concedes that “baggage” ordinarily means objects (paras 28-29), which should be dispositive: a sentient being does not fit an object category in 2025 legal and social usage. The VCLT requires interpretation “in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning…in their context and in the light of [the treaty’s] object and purpose.” However, admitting the ordinary meaning but refusing its consequence converts interpretation into policy selection, by letting industry exposure take precedence over meaning. The Court’s own recent treaty interpretation jurisprudence (Laudamotion, C-111/21) reaffirms the centrality of VCLT method when construing Montreal Convention’s concepts in EU law (paras 21-22). Iberia cites this approach (paras 26-27) but retreats from it at the decisive step, reversing VCLT sequencing. The Court of Justice’s interpretation is thus industry-protective, not text- or method-compelled.

Equitable balance, but for what kind of loss?

The preamble of the Montreal Convention contemplates an “equitable balance” and predictable exposure (paras 35-37). That logic is persuasive for replaceable property but far less convincing when the “item” is a companion animal – especially when such a loss, as that of a family member, foreseeably entails non-pecuniary harm. A similar appeal to balance and to the risk of claims that could “paralyse” carriers appears in Laudamotion, but there it served to shape the evidentiary threshold for compensable injury under Article 17(1), rather than to predetermine classification under Article 17(2) (paras 30-32).

The Court’s reliance on Walz (C-63/09) and Vueling Airlines (C-86/19) confirms that the baggage cap applies to non-material damage because those cases involved baggage. Iberia silently extends that logic to a qualitatively different interest without explaining why the same balance remains “equitable” here (paras 40-42). The crucial policy premise appears in para 38: higher exposure would risk “undermin[ing], and even paralys[ing], the economic activity of [air] carriers.”

The “economic paralysis” rationale

Para 38 repeats a generic proposition derived from cap-scope cases once classification is settled: that uncapped exposure could “undermine, even paralyse,” carriers. But those authorities address the extent of liability after an item is properly classified as baggage; they cannot decide the threshold question whether a sentient animal belongs in that category.

Using a downstream policy balance to settle the upstream categorisation is circular: it lets a liability limit designed for replaceable property dictate that a sentient companion animal must be treated as fungible property.

Nor is any empirical basis identified here (unsurprising in a preliminary reference) showing that recognising non-pecuniary harm for human guardians would threaten solvency or market stability. The consumer protection of the Montreal Convention points the other way: where the loss is non-fungible and foreseeably non-pecuniary, the equitable balance is not served by transmuting grief into a capped property claim. In short, para 38 does no doctrinal work on classification and is, in this context, inapposite.

A gratuitous wall against “passengers”

The reference asked whether companion animals are excluded from “baggage”, not whether they are “passengers.” The judgment nevertheless closes the latter door (paras 32-33).

“At the outset, it is necessary to discard an interpretation that includes pets within the concept of ‘passengers’, as Article 1 of the Montreal Convention refers specifically to persons and baggage. It thus follows from the clear wording of that provision that the concept of ‘persons’ corresponds to that of ‘passengers’, with the result that a pet cannot be considered to be a ‘passenger.” (para 32)

This move was unnecessary to resolve the question and signals a broader anxiety about any interpretation that might be seen, even indirectly, as dignifying sentient companions with a legal status incompatible with “objects.” Whatever one thinks of personhood debates, foreclosing “passenger” was not required to exclude “baggage.”

Article 13 TFEU reduced to logistics

The Court acknowledges animal welfare as an EU objective of general interest (para 44) but deems it irrelevant to the classification issue (para 45). That separates interpretation from constitutional context. Within the EU legal order, incorporated international agreements are read coherently with primary law. Henceforth, if classification forces sentient companion animals into a property track that, by design, compresses non-pecuniary loss into a fixed cap, coherence is lost. The answer effectively quarantines Article 13 TFEU at the tarmac rather than letting it inform the reading of an undefined treaty term.

The “special declaration” is not a remedy for moral harm

The Court presents the “special declaration of interest” as the safety valve (paras 41-42). But the device is pecuniary in design, pegged to the declared monetary value, and “subject to the approval of the air carrier” (para 42). It cannot insure against grief, loss of companionship, or relational harm. Reiterating its availability does not answer the problem of category error at the threshold.

Ignoring human guardians’ fundamental rights

Because Montreal Convention forms part of EU law, interpretation should also be coherent with the Charter of Fundamental Rights (EU Charter). Classifying companion animals as “baggage” reduces foreseeable non-pecuniary loss into a capped property claim. This sits uneasily with Article 7 of the EU Charter (respect for private and family life) – since companion animals are members of millions of European families – and with Article 38 of the EU Charter (high level of consumer protection), given that guardians travel with their animals and are marketed to as consumers of “pet-friendly” services. The practical outcome is also difficult to reconcile with Article 47 of the EU Charter (right to an effective remedy), as the cap forecloses meaningful redress for moral harm. A system-conforming interpretation would have chosen the permissible reading that minimises these conflicts by excluding sentient companions from the concept of “baggage.”

A more convincing reading

Nothing in Montreal Convention compels the assimilation of sentient companions to “baggage”. The Montreal Convention itself does not define “baggage”. Moreover, due to the ordinary meaning in 2025 usage, “baggage” denotes inanimate travel effects.

Interpreted under Articles 31-32 of the VCLT, with attention to contemporary context, a better view is that companion animals accompanying passengers fall outside Article 17(2) and thus outside Article 22(2)’s cap. That would avoid misfitting a property-liability template to a loss characterised by foreseeable, non-pecuniary human harm, leaving national courts to address that harm without distortion.

Member State law also underscores the disconnect. Several jurisdictions have re-positioned companion animals in private law and remedies. Since 2015, French law acknowledges animals as “living beings endowed with sensitivity”, recognises moral harm to guardians since Lunus (1962), and the irreplaceable and unique nature of companion animals in Delgado (2015). In the latter, the Cour de Cassation held that dogs are not amenable to replacement under a consumer conformity regime. Furthermore, in 2021, Spain reclassified animals as “seres vivos dotados de sensibilidad” and family courts consider the animal’s welfare when allocating custody and care under provisions such as Articles 90 bis and 9 bis of the Civil Code. Since 2017, Portugal explicitly provides non-pecuniary damages for the death of an irreplaceable companion animal under Article 493.º-A of the Civil Code. Additionally, Italian courts have compensated for the violation of the owner’s emotional integrity and have characterised the human-animal relationship as a value of constitutional significance. Finally, German civil law has long codified that animals are not things under § 90a BGB.

The broader context

Set against the Union’s recent retrenchment on animal welfare reforms, Iberia reads as a selective, industry-protective decision in legal clothing, declining to draw the legal consequences of animal sentience and the settled scientific evidence supporting it. Illustratively, the Commission urged a status change for the grey wolf under the Bern Convention, and the Standing Committee later brought that downgrade into force. Over the same period, the long-trailed overhaul of EU animal welfare legislation contracted to two sectoral files (transport and dogs and cats), with other items deferred. In the same vein, a leak draft of the Commission’s 2026 Work Programme still contains no animal welfare reform proposals, and the programme as adopted likewise omits the promised follow-up to the End the Cage Age, despite years of consultation and prior assurances.

Conclusion

Iberia treats the loss of a sentient companion animal as a baggage claim, justified by an “equitable balance” that reads as liability control for carriers. The Court acknowledges that “baggage” ordinarily denotes objects but accepts arguments about the “danger” of compensation “paralys[ing]” airlines and restricts Article 13 TFEU to animal welfare during transport. This interpretation was avoidable: a VCLT-faithful reading would have excluded sentient companions from “baggage”, preserving Montreal Convention’s uniformity for things while leaving national law to provide meaningful redress for human guardians when losing a non-human animal family member.

Had the Court taken the alternative path, recognising non-pecuniary loss to guardians would neither have precipitated the supposed “economic paralysis” of carriers nor ended companion animal transport. Regrettable incidents are preventable through improved practice – including, where feasible, in-cabin carriage – and compensating moral harm does not bankrupt airlines. Welcoming the contrary rhetoric and using this case to pre-empt incremental upgrades in animals’ legal status instead sends a poor institutional signal and reflects a misapplication of EU law and treaty interpretation rules.

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