Where an airline group operates through a local subsidiary that issues tickets and deals with passengers, the subsidiary may be the 'contracting carrier' under the Guadalajara Convention even though the parent company is the actual carrier. The formation of the agreement for carriage is governed by domestic law, and estoppel by representation is available to establish the identity of the contracting carrier. A party that represents by its conduct that it is the appropriate defendant may be estopped from denying that status even if the representation was inadvertent.
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