Supfabric
Your flight was cancelled: rights and how to claim
A cancellation gives you two separate entitlements, and one is not a substitute for the other.
The first is a choice: your money back, or a seat on another flight. The second is compensation: if the airline told you late, it owes you cash on top of whichever option you picked.
The short answer
No compensation is due if the airline gave you at least 14 days' notice. Below that, it depends on how good the replacement flight is.
| Notice given | Compensation due? |
|---|---|
| 14 days or more | No |
| 7–13 days | Yes, unless the replacement departs less than 2h early and arrives less than 4h late |
| Under 7 days | Yes, unless the replacement departs less than 1h early and arrives less than 2h late |
Amounts match the delay scale: €250, €400 or €600 by distance under EC 261, or £220/£350/£520 under UK261. Details on the flight delay compensation page.
Your choice: refund or rerouting
When a flight is cancelled the airline must offer three options. The choice is yours, not theirs.
A full refund of the fare. Paid within seven days, covering every unused leg. If you need to return to your point of origin, that return flight is provided free too.
Rerouting at the earliest opportunity. The airline puts you on the soonest available flight. "Soonest available" is not limited to its own fleet — buying you a seat on another carrier is part of the obligation where that is what's soonest.
Rerouting at a later date of your choosing, subject to seat availability.
Being offered only a voucher or flight credit does not extinguish this. You are entitled to insist on the cash refund.
Care while you wait
If you're waiting for a replacement flight, the airline owes you care. This is unrelated to compensation and applies even in extraordinary circumstances.
- Meals and refreshments proportionate to the wait
- Two phone calls or emails
- Hotel accommodation and transfers if the wait runs overnight
If none is provided, keep receipts and reclaim reasonable costs. Airport restaurant prices count as reasonable; a fine-dining dinner in town does not.
When the airline owes nothing
The compensation obligation falls away if the airline proves the cancellation was caused by extraordinary circumstances. The boundary is the same as for delays: severe weather, airspace closure, ATC strikes and security risks qualify; technical faults, crew shortages and strikes by the airline's own staff do not.
The point that trips people up: extraordinary circumstances only remove compensation. The refund and the duty of care survive untouched. Airlines routinely conflate the two, and a refusal letter that denies you a refund on weather grounds is simply wrong.
Cancellation or long delay?
Airlines sometimes cancel a flight, move everyone onto a service hours later, and call it a delay. For compensation the distinction rarely matters — either way, arriving three or more hours late triggers a claim.
It matters for your choice. If the flight is cancelled you can demand a refund immediately. With a delay that right only arises after five hours.
A changed flight number, a shifted date, or a reissued ticket are all signs of a cancellation.
How to claim
- Keep the cancellation notice — a screenshot of the email or SMS with its date and time. The notice date is the first thing that decides whether compensation arises, so this evidence matters most. The replacement flight's timings and the cause of the cancellation feed into it too.
- Confirm in writing which option you accepted.
- Write to the airline with the flight number, date, booking reference, the date you were notified, and the departure and arrival times of what you were offered.
- If refused, escalate to the national enforcement body of the departure country; in the UK, to the CAA or an approved ADR scheme.
Sources
- Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, articles 5 and 8
- SHY-YOLCU regulation, Directorate General of Civil Aviation, Türkiye
- Court of Justice of the EU, C-549/07 (technical faults are not extraordinary)
This article is for information only and is not legal advice. For an actual dispute, rely on the current text of the applicable regulation.