Q&A | Georg Schwarzmann | Aviation

Hello, my name is Gio Schwartzman and I’m a lawyer at Yurim Partner Rex. We are a well established law firm with seven lawyers and 16 employees. Our office is located in the heart of Vienna, the capital city of Austria. now to let you know a little bit more about myself. I grew up near Vienna and studied law at the University of Vienna.

after my graduation I joined the Yahoo partner and now I’m there for more than 10 years. from the beginning I focused on aviation matters and became the head of the aviation team two years ago. The legal situation in Austria regarding passenger rights is a little bit different from other European countries even if the basis the legal provisions are the same in all the European Union. The case law is very different. in Austria the courts are quite consumer friendly and of course we

are familiar with Austrian case law and we also know the judges which deal the cases at the Austrian courts. in this context I want to note that there is only one main international airport in Austria which is the Vienna International Airport and therefore most of the cases we deal with are at one court and this is the district court of based on our knowledge of court practice and the judges we are able to tailor our approach to each individual case and assess the chances of success.

when we decide to pursue or defend a case in court, we have therefore very high success rates. even though we are a wellestablished law firm, we place great importance to a low internet internal structures, efficient workflows and a straightforward communication with our clients. one thing we offer is that a lawyer is available for our clients 24 hours every day. so that we can deal with urgent matters every time.

in addition we offer our clients not only advice in aviation matters but also in other legal legal cases and questions for example labor law, immigration law or public law. our main focus is on corporate clients whom we support in enforcing or defending claims and we also provide comprehensive legal advice to them. So with anything they come up to us we we will answer or or give them our legal advice. However, we also represent private clients even if this is not

the largest part of our work. our firm handles a wide range of cases basically covering all areas of commercial law and as already told my team focuses on passenger rights in the aviation sector. this involves passenger passengers claiming for compensation due to cancellations, delays or lost luggage. However, we also deal with questions regarding conditions of carriage or other legal requirements that airlines have to fulfill. For example, immigration requirements for their passengers.

case law in Austria is very consumer friendly which puts us in a very difficult situation when representing airlines. Despite this, we have succeeded in many cases in demonstrating the court why the airlines should not be held liable if there are extraordinary circumstances. I think in in this regard it’s a great benefit that we have many years of experience in aviation law and have a wide knowledge of the operations of airlines and and the facts at the airports. one recent case I want to mention

because there are many similar cases in Austria is a case where the conditions of carriage of an airline were contested in court because the claimment, which is a consumer organization, says that it includes clauses that are not in accordance with law and and they claim very high amounts. And in this case, we really focused on the interests of our client and achieved a very successful out of court settlement which allows our client to adapt their conditions of carriage within one year and the payment

was also not that high. of course there are also many cases in which we are representing passengers. So we are on both sides which gives us a great insight and we also successfully enforce claims for passengers in court.

We already have some partner lawyers in many European countries and based on my experience this is a significant benefit. especially in aviation law which is a subject area with a strong international focus. therefore my goal is to expand this network to have partner lawyers all over the world and to also improve our public presence to show potential clients at the service we provide in Austria.