Flight Compensation Checker

Which regulation covers your flight

Two near-identical rules, and which one applies depends on geography and on who operated the flight, not on where you live or where you bought the ticket.

• EU261 — Regulation (EC) 261/2004 — covers any flight departing an airport in the EU, Iceland or Norway, whoever operates it; and flights arriving in those states from elsewhere only when the operating airline is licensed in the EU or the EEA. Switzerland is covered through the EU–Swiss air transport agreement, with some narrower edges than full membership.
• UK261 — the retained version in UK law — covers any flight departing the United Kingdom, whoever operates it; and flights arriving in the UK when the operating airline is a UK or an EU/EEA carrier.
• The Brexit consequence people miss. A UK airline is no longer an EU carrier. New York to Paris on a UK airline is covered by neither rule: it does not depart the EU or the UK, and the operator is not an EU carrier. The same flight on an EU airline is covered.
• A UK to EU flight can be covered by both. It departs the UK, so UK261 applies; on an EU carrier it also arrives in the EU on a Community carrier. You claim once, not twice, but you may have a choice of enforcement body.

What is owed, and when

Compensation is fixed by distance, not by what you paid:

• €250 / £220 for flights of 1,500 km or less.
• €400 / £350 for flights between 1,500 and 3,500 km, and for all intra-EU flights over 1,500 km however long.
• €600 / £520 for everything else over 3,500 km.

Distance is measured from the first departure point to the final destination on the booking, by great circle, not the length of the leg that failed. A missed connection that delays you six hours on a Yerevan–Paris–Dublin ticket is banded on Yerevan to Dublin.

For a delay, the trigger is arriving three hours or more late at the final destination. That threshold is not in the text of the regulation — it comes from the Court of Justice in Sturgeon, which held that passengers delayed three hours or more suffer the same loss as passengers whose flight was cancelled. Two hours fifty-five minutes is nothing at all; three hours is the full amount. Measure it from when the aircraft door opened, not from touchdown.

For a cancellation, compensation is owed unless you were told fourteen days or more in advance, or you were offered a re-routing close enough to the original times: told seven to thirteen days ahead, departing no more than two hours early and arriving less than four hours late; told less than seven days ahead, departing no more than one hour early and arriving less than two hours late.

For denied boarding against your will — the overbooking case — compensation is owed outright. There is no extraordinary-circumstances defence to it. If you gave up your seat voluntarily in exchange for a benefit, you agreed a deal instead and the regulation's compensation no longer applies.

The 50% reduction

If the airline re-routed you and you still arrived nearly on time, it may pay half: within 2 hours on flights up to 1,500 km, within 3 hours on the middle band, within 4 hours on the longest. It applies only where a re-routing was actually provided. Airlines apply this reduction more often than it is due — check the arrival time you actually achieved against those thresholds before accepting half.

Extraordinary circumstances, and what does not count

No compensation is due where the cause was extraordinary and unavoidable even with all reasonable measures: severe weather, air-traffic control restrictions, security alerts, political instability, a bird strike, a strike by air-traffic controllers or airport staff. Two things widely claimed as extraordinary generally are not. Routine technical faults are part of running an airline — the Court of Justice said so in Wallentin-Hermann — and a strike by the airline's own staff is an internal matter, which is the holding in Krüsemann. If the airline cites either, that is a reason to push, not to give up. The burden of proving an extraordinary circumstance is on the airline, not on you.

Right to care is separate, and it never goes away

Whatever caused the problem — including the volcano, the storm, the strike — the airline owes you care while you wait: meals and refreshments proportionate to the wait, two phone calls or emails, and a hotel with transfers if it becomes an overnight. After five hours you may abandon the journey and take a full refund, plus a flight back to your first departure point if you are stranded part-way and continuing no longer serves any purpose. Airlines routinely fail to offer this and fairly often reimburse it when you keep the receipts and ask afterwards. Keep the receipts.

How to claim, and the limits of this page

Claim directly with the airline first, in writing, with the booking reference, the flight number, the date and the arrival time you actually achieved. If they refuse or go quiet, escalate to the national enforcement body of the country the flight departed from, or of the country of arrival where the operating carrier is based there — in the UK that is the Civil Aviation Authority. Claim-management companies will do it for a third of the money, which is worth it only if you were never going to do it yourself.

These rules are as compiled in September 2026, and this page is a structured reading of them, not legal advice. Case law moves, national enforcement bodies interpret the edges differently, and time limits to bring a claim are set by national law and range from about two years to six. Check with the relevant enforcement body or with the airline before relying on any of it.