European rule EC261 gives passengers a fixed payout when a flight is delayed by three hours or more, cancelled at short notice, or overbooked. Most people never claim it — airlines are not required to tell you.
Check your flightWhen a flight goes wrong, airlines tend to offer a voucher, a meal box or a polite apology. What they rarely mention is that European law may oblige them to pay you a fixed sum in cash, on top of any refund — and that the sum does not depend on what you paid for your ticket.
Regulation EC261/2004 has applied since 2005 and covers a very large share of the flights taken by anyone travelling to or from Europe. The amounts are set in advance, the criteria are objective, and the burden of proof sits with the airline, not with you.
The catch is procedural rather than legal: claims are slow, airlines contest routinely, and most passengers give up somewhere between the first refusal and the second form. That abandonment is, in practice, part of the business model.
The payout is tied to the length of the flight, not to the price of the ticket. A €39 low-cost seat and a €900 flexible fare on the same route are worth exactly the same compensation.
| Flight distance | Compensation | Typical example |
|---|---|---|
| 1,500 km or less | €250 | Paris – Rome, London – Dublin |
| 1,500–3,500 km, and all intra-EU flights over 1,500 km | €400 | Madrid – Athens, Berlin – Lisbon |
| Over 3,500 km, leaving or entering the EU | €600 | Paris – New York, Amsterdam – Bangkok |
Two adjustments are worth knowing. The amount is per passenger, so a family of four on a long-haul flight can be owed €2,400 for a single disrupted journey. And if the airline reroutes you so that you arrive only moderately late, it may halve the payment — a rule that gives it a real incentive to find you another flight quickly.
The regulation exempts airlines from compensation when the disruption stems from extraordinary circumstances — events genuinely outside their control. In practice this covers severe weather, air traffic control strikes, security alerts, political instability and bird strikes.
The phrase is invoked far more often than it applies, and two limits are well established. A technical fault is normally not extraordinary: maintaining aircraft is an inherent part of running an airline, so a mechanical problem usually leaves the compensation due. And a strike by the airline's own staff is generally treated as internal to the business, unlike a strike by air traffic controllers.
This is why an initial refusal is worth so little on its own. The airline decides what to call extraordinary; whether that label holds is a separate question, and the burden of proving it falls on the airline.
Even when no compensation is due, the airline still owes you assistance during a long wait: food and drink proportionate to the delay, a means of communication, and — if you are stuck overnight — a hotel room and transport to it. This obligation holds even in a snowstorm, and it is the one passengers most often forget to claim on the spot.
You are entitled to claim on your own, and it costs nothing. If the airline accepts liability quickly — it happens, particularly for a clear-cut technical delay — you keep the full amount and lose only an hour of admin. Try this first.
Where it gets harder is after a refusal. Contesting an "extraordinary circumstances" defence means proving what actually happened to that aircraft on that day, and airlines are considerably better resourced at that than a passenger with a boarding pass.
A specialist takes the file, argues the case and, where needed, goes to court — in exchange for a percentage of what it recovers, typically around a third. No win, no fee: if the claim fails you pay nothing.
The arithmetic is simple. Two thirds of €600 obtained beats the whole of €600 abandoned after the second refusal. But if the airline has already agreed to pay, handing the file over costs you the fee for nothing.
Affiliate link — checking is free, and we earn a commission only if a claim succeeds. It costs you nothing extra, and you can always claim directly from the airline yourself instead.
Under EU rule EC261 the amount depends on flight distance, not on ticket price: €250 for flights of 1,500 km or less, €400 for flights between 1,500 and 3,500 km and for all intra-EU flights over 1,500 km, and €600 for flights over 3,500 km that leave or enter the EU. It is paid per passenger, so a family of four can be owed four times that amount.
Three hours or more, measured on arrival at your final destination — not on departure. This matters: a flight that leaves two hours late but lands three and a half hours late does qualify. For connecting flights booked on a single reservation, what counts is the arrival time at the end of the journey.
Usually yes. The deadline is set by national law rather than by the regulation itself, and it ranges from about one year to six years depending on the country where the claim is brought. Flights from two or three years ago are often still claimable, which is why it is worth checking old bookings rather than assuming they have expired.
When the disruption comes from extraordinary circumstances outside its control: severe weather, air traffic control strikes, political instability, security risks or a bird strike. Technical faults are generally not treated as extraordinary, because maintenance is part of running an airline. A strike by the airline's own staff is usually claimable too.
No, and this is the most common mistake. A refund returns the price of a ticket you did not use. Compensation is a separate penalty for the disruption itself. If a flight is cancelled you can be entitled to both, and accepting a refund or a voucher does not by itself cancel your right to compensation.
Any flight departing from an airport in the EU, whatever the airline. And any flight arriving in the EU operated by an EU airline. Iceland, Norway and Switzerland are included, and the United Kingdom applies its own near-identical version of the rule after Brexit.
This page explains a European regulation in plain terms. It is general information, not legal advice, and time limits in particular are set by national law and vary from one country to another.
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