Flight delay compensation: how much and how to claim it

If your flight was delayed and you reached your final destination three or more hours late, you are usually owed between €250 and €600 in cash. This is unrelated to what you paid: a €40 ticket can still produce a €600 payout.

The only real exception is a delay caused by something outside the airline's control.

The short answer

These figures come from EC 261. The UK's retained version, UK261, uses the same tiers in pounds: £220, £350 and £520.

Two exceptions will otherwise leave you expecting too much:

Intra-EU flights cap at €400. Between two EU points, any distance over 1,500 km pays €400 — even the Canaries to Finland. The €600 tier only applies to long flights leaving the EU.

On flights over 3,500 km, a delay between three and four hours can be halved. Article 7(2) lets the airline reduce €600 to €300 in that band. Past four hours you get the full amount.

Which rules cover your flight

EC 261 applies to any flight departing an EU airport, and to flights arriving in the EU on an EU airline. Iceland, Norway and Switzerland are included.

UK261 applies the same way to UK departures and UK arrivals on UK or EU carriers.

Türkiye's SHY-YOLCU covers all departures from Turkish airports and arrivals into Türkiye on Turkish carriers. Its scale matches EC 261 and it adds a €100 tier for domestic flights.

A London–Istanbul flight on a Turkish carrier is covered by both EC 261's UK equivalent and SHY-YOLCU. You may rely on whichever is better for you, but you cannot be paid twice.

A New York–Istanbul flight on an American carrier falls under neither. US rules do not provide delay compensation at all — a distinction that sends a lot of passengers into pointless claims.

Which three hours count

This is the most common misunderstanding. What matters is not how late you departed but how late you arrived.

A plane that pushes back two hours late, makes up time and lands one hour late produces no claim. A plane that leaves on time and arrives three hours late does.

On connecting itineraries, the "final destination" is the last stop. If a forty-minute delay on the first leg makes you miss a connection and you get in six hours late, six hours is the number.

Arrival is not wheels-down. The Court of Justice of the EU settled in 2014 that arrival is the moment a door is opened (C-452/13). In borderline cases this is decisive.

Extraordinary circumstances: the airline's only real defence

An airline avoids paying if it proves the delay was caused by "extraordinary circumstances" beyond its control. The category is narrower than airlines like to suggest.

Counts as extraordinary: severe weather, airspace closure, air traffic control strike, political instability, a security risk, a diversion for a passenger's medical emergency.

Does not count: technical faults, crew shortages, a strike by the airline's own staff, scheduling problems.

The technical fault distinction matters most. The Court held that faults which surface during routine maintenance are part of an airline's ordinary operating risk (C-549/07). Türkiye wrote the same principle into SHY-YOLCU in an amendment effective 10 December 2024.

The rule has a limit of its own: in the same judgment the Court carved out hidden manufacturing defects and acts of sabotage — faults ordinary maintenance could not have caught. These are narrow; a routine breakdown does not qualify.

If your rejection letter says "technical reasons", it is worth challenging.

How to claim

1. Gather evidence. Boarding pass, ticket, booking reference. A photo of the delay board and anything showing your actual arrival time will help.
2. Record the real arrival time — the moment the door opened. Flight tracking apps show this retrospectively.
3. Write to the airline directly. Give the flight number, date, booking reference, actual arrival time and the amount you are claiming. Name the regulation you are relying on.
4. Escalate if refused or ignored. In the EU, to the national enforcement body of the departure country. In the UK, to the CAA or an approved ADR scheme. In Türkiye, to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.
5. Go to court if needed. The limitation period for a compensation claim is not the Montreal Convention's two years; in C-139/11 the Court held that each country's own limitation rules apply. It is six years in England and Wales, and as little as one year in some member states. Montreal's two-year window matters for baggage claims.

Claim agencies take 25–50% in commission. The claim is one email; try it yourself first.

What you get even without compensation

Even where no compensation is due, once a delay passes certain thresholds the airline owes you care. This applies regardless of extraordinary circumstances — bad weather included.

The threshold for meals and communications depends on distance:

Once the threshold passes: meals and refreshments, two phone calls or emails. If the wait runs overnight, hotel accommodation and transfers. Past five hours you may abandon the trip and claim a full refund.

If the airline provides none of this, keep receipts and reclaim reasonable costs.

Commonly confused

Compensation and refunds are separate. After a five-hour delay you may abandon the trip and reclaim the fare. Whether compensation is also payable is contested: compensation turns on arriving late at your destination, and a passenger who never flies has no arrival to measure. You can claim both, but expect the airline to resist the compensation half.

Baggage delay is a different regime. That falls under the Montreal Convention, capped at 1,519 SDR per passenger, and compensates proven loss rather than paying a fixed sum.

Downgrades have their own scale — 30%, 50% or 75% of the ticket price by distance, and this one is never excused by extraordinary circumstances.

Sources

• Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, Official Journal of the European Union
• SHY-YOLCU regulation, Directorate General of Civil Aviation, Türkiye
• Court of Justice of the EU: C-452/13 (definition of arrival), C-549/07 (technical faults), C-139/11 (limitation periods are a matter for national law)
• Montreal Convention liability limits, ICAO — revised 28 December 2024

The European Parliament and Council reached a provisional agreement on EC 261 reform on 15 June 2026. The three-hour threshold and the €250–600 scale were both kept. The text is not yet in force; I will update this page when it is.

This article is for information only and is not legal advice. For an actual dispute, rely on the current text of the applicable regulation.