Flight Delayed? Claim Up to €600 Compensation

When Can You Claim Flight Delay Compensation?

Under the landmark Sturgeon v Condor ruling by the European Court of Justice, passengers on delayed flights have the same compensation rights as those on cancelled flights. You can claim if:

• Your flight arrived at the final destination 3+ hours late
• The delay was caused by the airline (not extraordinary circumstances)
• The flight departed from an EU/UK/EEA airport, or arrived at one on an EU airline
• The delay occurred within the last 3-6 years

Important: The delay is calculated from the arrival time at your final destination — not the departure time. According to EU court rulings, arrival time means when at least one aircraft door opens and passengers are allowed to disembark.

Compensation Amounts for Delayed Flights

What About Connecting Flights?

If you had connecting flights booked on a single ticket and the delay caused you to miss your connection, what matters is how late you arrived at your final destination. For example: if you flew Madrid → Munich → London and arrived in London 4 hours late, you can claim based on the full Madrid-London distance — even if the Munich-London leg was on time.

Your Rights During the Delay

While waiting for your delayed flight, the airline must provide you with:

• Delay of 2+ hours (short-haul): Free meals and refreshments, 2 phone calls/emails
• Delay of 3+ hours (medium-haul): Same as above
• Delay of 4+ hours (long-haul): Same as above
• Overnight delay: Hotel accommodation and airport transfers
• Delay of 5+ hours: Full ticket refund if you choose not to travel

If the airline didn't provide these, keep your receipts — you can claim reimbursement for reasonable expenses.

How We Help You Claim

Airlines regularly reject or ignore compensation claims from individual passengers. With Flight-Cancelled.com, you have a team of legal experts fighting for your rights. FlyHelp has won more than 7,000 cases.

Delays Are Measured at Arrival — and That Changes Everything

Passengers count delay from the moment the departure board changes; the regulation counts it at the other end. What matters is the time the aircraft door opened at your final destination compared with the scheduled arrival. This cuts both ways. A flight that left three and a half hours late but landed 2 h 50 min late pays nothing. A flight that left only 40 minutes late but made you miss a connection and arrive the next morning pays the full amount for the whole journey. Always check the actual door-open time, not the touchdown time shown in tracking apps — the difference is often 10–20 minutes and regularly decides borderline cases.

Your Rights Hour by Hour

Delay	Short-haul (≤1,500 km)	Medium-haul (1,500–3,500 km)	Long-haul (>3,500 km)
2 hours	Meals, drinks, 2 communications	—	—
3 hours	Care + €250 compensation at arrival	Meals, drinks, 2 communications; €400 if arrival is 3 h+ late	—
4 hours	Care + compensation	Care + compensation	Meals, drinks, 2 communications; €600 if arrival is 3 h+ late
5 hours	Additionally: full refund of the unused ticket within 7 days, plus a return flight to your origin if you are mid-journey
Overnight	Hotel and transport to it, in addition to everything above

Compensation can be halved when the airline re-routes you and your arrival is within 2, 3 or 4 hours (by distance band) of the original schedule — this applies mostly to cancellations, but airlines sometimes invoke it for delays where they moved you to another flight.

Real Examples of Delay Claims

• Technical fault, London–Málaga, arrived 4 h 10 min late. The airline cited an "unexpected technical issue". Technical faults are inherent in running an airline (van der Lans, C-257/14): £220 per passenger.
• Late inbound aircraft, Warsaw–Barcelona, 3 h 30 min late. The aircraft arrived late from Rome after a morning delay. Rotation planning is the airline's responsibility (TAP, C-74/19): €400 per passenger.
• Thunderstorms at Frankfurt, Frankfurt–Lisbon, 3 h 05 min late. Storms closed the airfield for 90 minutes; the airline proved the restriction applied to this flight: €0, but meal vouchers reimbursed.
• Air-traffic-control strike in France, Dublin–Nice, 5 h late. Third-party strike: extraordinary. €0 compensation, but the refund of a hotel night was recovered.
• Crew out of duty hours, Manchester–Tenerife, 6 h late. The crew "timed out" after an earlier delay and a replacement crew was flown in. Staffing is within the airline's control: £350 per passenger.

Common Mistakes That Cost Passengers Their Claim

1. Accepting a voucher at the desk. Vouchers are only a settlement if you agree to them in writing; if you did, the cash claim may be gone.
2. Not noting the door-open time. Airlines quote landing time; in borderline cases the 15 minutes at the gate decide the claim.
3. Throwing away receipts. Meals, taxis and hotels are recoverable in addition to compensation — but only with receipts.
4. Waiting for the airline to answer for months. Contacting the airline does not stop the limitation clock in most countries; if the deadline is close, escalate.
5. Believing the first "extraordinary circumstances" letter. Roughly half of first refusals are reversed when the airline is asked for operational evidence.

Delays on Connecting Flights

If both flights are on one booking, the airline that operated the delayed leg is liable for the arrival delay at the final destination, and the distance for the compensation band is the whole journey — Edinburgh to Bangkok, not Edinburgh to Amsterdam. If you bought two separate tickets, each flight is judged on its own: a 40-minute delay on the first ticket that makes you miss the second pays nothing under EU261, which is why we recommend single bookings for connections.