Montreal Convention (air)
Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air (Montreal, 1999), limits as revised with effect from 28 December 2024
When it applies
International carriage by air between states party to the Convention. Now the dominant air regime; the Warsaw system survives where one end of the journey is in a state that has not ratified Montreal.
Limit
Article 22(3)26 SDR per kilogram for destruction, loss, damage or delay of cargo. The Convention reviews its limits every five years against inflation: 17 SDR originally, 19 from 2009, 22 from 2019, and 26 from 28 December 2024.
Notice of loss
Article 31Written complaint within fourteen days of receipt for damage to cargo, and within twenty-one days from the date the cargo was placed at the consignee's disposal for delay. Miss it and, absent fraud, no action lies at all.
Time bar
Article 35Two years from arrival, from the date the aircraft ought to have arrived, or from the date carriage stopped. This is a hard extinction of the right, not a limitation period that can be paused.
When the limit is lost
For cargo the limit is effectively unbreakable: Article 22(3) applies unless the consignor made a special declaration of interest at delivery and paid a supplementary sum. Unlike the sea and road regimes, recklessness does not open it up.
What the cap pays on a sample consignment
Applying the published limit to a sample consignment of 1,000 kg gross, 10 packages, invoice value US$120,000. The consignment is an illustration chosen so the arithmetic is checkable — it is not an average, a typical shipment or a measurement.
No conversion between SDR and any currency is shown. The International Monetary Fund revalues the SDR every business day, so a converted figure printed on a page is wrong by the time it is read.
What this means for cover
Air freight is where the notice period catches people out. Fourteen days is short, it runs from receipt rather than from discovery, and it is the one convention where the cargo limit does not break for bad behaviour.
Other air regimes
Sources
This page summarises the instruments above. It is not the wording, and it is not legal advice. Where a summary conflicts with a convention text, a policy wording or a certificate, that document governs.
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