55In the light of the foregoing, the answer to the second question is that Article 5(3) of Regulation No 261/2004, read in the light of recital 14 of that regulation, must be interpreted as meaning that, in order to be exempted from its obligation to compensate passengers in the event of a long delay or cancellation of a flight, an operating air carrier may rely on an ‘extraordinary circumstance’ which affected a previous flight which it operated using the same aircraft, provided that there is a direct causal link between the occurrence of that circumstance and the delay or cancellation of the subsequent flight, which is for the national court to determine, having regard in particular to the conditions of operation of the aircraft in question by the operating air carrier concerned.
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