travel defect
noun · Reisemangel
A Reisemangel exists where the package lacks the agreed quality, and also where the organiser fails to provide services at all or provides them with unreasonable delay, § 651i BGB. The remedies form a ladder in the following provisions, and the traveller loses much of it if he does not notify the defect on the spot.
Which translation, when
Why
Travel defect is the Reisemangel, and the German construction is broader than the English word suggests. Under § 651i BGB the organiser must procure the package free of defects, and the package is free of defects if it has the agreed quality; where quality was not agreed, the statute asks whether the package is suitable for the use assumed under the contract and otherwise whether it has the quality customary in comparable packages. The third sentence adds what English lawyers would classify as non-performance rather than defect: a Reisemangel also exists where the organiser does not provide travel services at all or provides them with unreasonable delay. Everything therefore runs through the defect concept, and the general law of breach is displaced. The remedies form a ladder. The traveller may demand remedial action, and where the organiser does not act within a reasonable period he may remedy the defect himself and claim the necessary outlay. He may terminate the contract where the defect substantially impairs the package. He may reduce the price for the period during which the defect existed, and here the reduction operates by law rather than by declaration, which is why German practice works with percentage tables built from decided cases. And he may claim damages, including, where the journey is frustrated or substantially impaired, compensation for wasted holiday time, which has its own entry. One procedural step decides most disputes: the traveller must notify the defect without undue delay while still on the journey, and a traveller who complains only on his return loses the reduction and the damages unless he was unable to notify through no fault of his own.
Typical mistakes
- Non-performance and unreasonable delay are themselves travel defects, § 651i BGB, so treating them under the general law of breach applies the wrong rules.
- Failure to notify the defect on the spot costs the traveller the reduction and the damages, so a complaint made after returning home is usually too late.
- The price reduction operates by law for the period of the defect, so describing it as a goodwill payment misstates the entitlement.
What matters
Advising a traveller on a German package holiday: the note should identify the defect, insist on notification to the organiser on site with documentation, and set out the ladder from remedial action through reduction to damages.
What the machine misses
A machine version of travel defect produces Reisefehler or Mangel der Reise, and the statutory concept is the Reisemangel of § 651i BGB, which covers non-performance and unreasonable delay as well as poor quality; the loose wording also detaches the term from the remedy ladder and from the notification duty on which the traveller’s claims depend.
Examples
| a travel defect | ein Reisemangel |
| the package is free of defects | die Pauschalreise ist frei von Reisemängeln |
| to demand remedial action | Abhilfe verlangen |
| notification of the defect | die Mängelanzeige |