What to do when your flight is canceled or delayed + your rights

If your flight is canceled or you land 3 hours or more late, EU rules pay €250 to €600 and UK rules pay £220 to £520, unless the airline proves extraordinary circumstances. US rules work differently: they give you a refund, not a compensation payment.

Three separate rulebooks decide what you get, and which one applies depends on where you took off and who you flew with. Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, usually written EU261 or EC261, covers flights leaving any EU airport on any airline and flights arriving in the EU on an EU airline. It also covers Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, and the EU outermost regions such as Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Mayotte, Réunion, Saint-Martin, Madeira, the Azores and the Canary Islands. The UK left that system after Brexit and now runs its own near-copy, UK261, with the amounts set in pounds. For flights inside the United States, the rules live in the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 14, and worldwide there is the Montreal Convention of 1999, in force since 2003, which governs baggage and delay liability between the countries that signed it.

The practical difference is large. Europe pays a fixed sum for the inconvenience itself. The United States pays nothing for inconvenience on a delay, but does force a refund when a flight is canceled or badly changed, and pays cash when you are bumped off an oversold flight.

Airline passenger rights for delayed flights or canceled flights

Your rights on a delayed or canceled flight fall into three buckets: care while you wait, a refund or a rerouting, and in Europe a cash payment on top. Care means food, drinks and a hotel bed. Rerouting means a seat on another flight or your money back. Compensation is the separate sum the airline owes you for the disruption.

Knowing which bucket you are in before you reach the desk is what saves the day. The gate will be crowded, the staff will be repeating the same line to 200 people, and the passenger who already knows what to ask for gets served faster.

Ask why the flight was delayed or canceled

Ask the reason immediately, and write down the exact words you are given. The answer decides whether you can claim later, because weather and air traffic control decisions usually block a payout while an ordinary technical fault usually does not.

Make the gate agent give you a clear reason rather than “operational reasons”. If the announcement changes over the afternoon, note each version with the time you heard it. Airlines have to prove extraordinary circumstances to a national enforcement body, so a contemporaneous note of what they told you at the gate is worth more than a memory three months later.

Documents to save and information to note

Keep every boarding pass, receipt and booking confirmation from the moment things go wrong. You will need them for the claim, and a claim without documents is usually refused.

Hold on to any boarding documents or receipts you have at the time of the cancellation, plus anything you spend during it. If a pre-paid hotel night or a tour goes unused, record that too. Some of those costs come back if your claim succeeds.

Note the exact time the aircraft door opens when you finally reach your final destination. European compensation is calculated on arrival delay, not departure delay, and the 3-hour threshold is measured at the door. A flight that leaves 5 hours late and makes up time in the air can land 2 hours 50 minutes late and pay nothing.

Re-booking your flight

The airline has to get you to your destination, and it has to do it at the earliest opportunity if that is what you choose. Under EU261 you pick one of three things: a full refund of the unused part of the ticket plus a flight back to where you started if the journey no longer has a point, a rerouting at the earliest opportunity, or a rerouting on a later date that suits you.

Gate agents will be swamped. Calling the airline’s customer service line, or messaging them on social media, often reaches a human faster than standing in the queue. Some carriers answer far quicker on social than on the phone, and a few answer nowhere at all, so start two channels at once and take whichever moves first.

Ask whether they will put you on a different airline and cover the difference. Carriers sometimes agree, because it frees a seat for the next passenger in the queue. Many airlines also let you rebook yourself inside their app the moment a delay appears on the board, which beats every queue in the terminal.

Manners get you further than temper. What is happening to you is not the fault of the person behind the desk, and the people who stay civil are the ones who end up on the earlier flight.

Missed flight connection

A missed connection is the airline’s problem only if the whole journey sits on one ticket. Book A to C via B as a single booking and the carrier has to find you a new connection. Book A to B and B to C separately and the second airline owes you nothing when the first one runs late.

If all legs are with the same airline, separate tickets sometimes still get sorted out as a courtesy, but you are asking rather than demanding. This is the single most expensive booking decision most travelers make without noticing, and it is the reason the travel insurance section further down matters.

Hotel, transport and meal vouchers

In Europe care is a right, not a favour. Once your delay passes the threshold for your flight distance, the airline has to feed you and, if the wait runs overnight, put you up and get you to the hotel and back.

The thresholds come straight from Article 6 of the regulation. Care starts at 2 hours for flights of 1,500 km or less, at 3 hours for intra-EU flights over 1,500 km and all other flights between 1,500 and 3,500 km, and at 4 hours for everything longer. You also get two free phone calls, emails or faxes. At 5 hours or more you can walk away entirely and take a refund instead.

In the United States there is no equivalent legal right. Vouchers exist, but each airline sets its own policy in its contract of carriage, and weather-related delays rarely produce one. Asking politely is the whole procedure.

Use mobile apps

Two apps earn their space before you leave home. FlightAware tracks your aircraft’s inbound leg, which is how you learn about a delay an hour before the board does. The European Commission’s own passenger rights app tells you what you are owed and links to the right national enforcement body.

Knowing your inbound aircraft is still sitting in another country is the trick that gets you rebooked first, because you can start the phone call while everyone else is still reading “on time” on the screen.

Check your credit card benefits

Check your card before you claim anywhere else, because travel cards often cover delays that no regulation touches. Cards that include trip delay protection reimburse meals, a hotel and essentials after a set number of hours, and that cover applies on US domestic flights where EU261 does not exist.

The qualifying delay length, the covered reasons and the payout cap differ from card to card, so read your own benefits guide rather than a general figure. Keep the original boarding pass and the card statement showing you paid for the ticket with that card, because both are usually required.

Are you eligible for flight delay or cancellation compensation?

Eligibility depends on the regime, the length of the delay at arrival and whether the airline can blame extraordinary circumstances. The three scales below are statutory, so each one is written in its own currency rather than converted.

EU261: how much and when

EU261 pays a fixed sum when you reach your final destination 3 hours or more late, or when your flight is canceled at short notice. Article 7 of the regulation sets the amounts: EUR 250 for all flights of 1,500 km or less, EUR 400 for all intra-Community flights of more than 1,500 km and for all other flights between 1,500 and 3,500 km, and EUR 600 for everything longer. Distance is measured by the great circle route to your last destination.

Two details in the regulation get missed constantly. First, the airline may cut the payment by 50% if it reroutes you and you still arrive within 2, 3 or 4 hours of the original time, using the same distance brackets. Second, a cancellation only pays if you were told late. There is no compensation if you were informed at least two weeks ahead. Between two weeks and seven days ahead, there is none if the rerouting leaves no more than 2 hours early and lands less than 4 hours late. Under seven days, there is none if the rerouting leaves no more than 1 hour early and lands less than 2 hours late.

Compensation is separate from the refund or the rerouting. You get both, not one or the other.

UK261: how much and when

UK261 mirrors the European scale but pays in pounds, and it has applied to UK departures since Brexit. The Civil Aviation Authority sets the amounts at £220 for short-haul flights under 1,500 km delayed 2 or more hours, £350 for medium-haul flights of 1,500 km to 3,500 km delayed 3 or more hours, and £520 for long-haul flights over 3,500 km delayed 4 or more hours, with £260 payable on a long-haul flight rerouted to land less than 4 hours late.

The UK rules cover flights departing a UK airport on any airline, flights arriving in the UK on a UK or EU airline, and flights arriving in the EU on a UK airline. A London to New York flight on a British carrier is a UK261 case, not an EU261 one, and claiming under the wrong regulation is the commonest reason a self-filed claim gets bounced.

United States: refunds, not compensation

The United States pays no inconvenience compensation for a delay, however long. What it does give you, since the Department of Transportation’s refund rule took effect, is an automatic refund when your flight is canceled or significantly changed and you do not accept the alternative offered.

The rule defines a significant change precisely. It covers departing 3 or more hours earlier on a domestic itinerary or 6 or more hours earlier on an international one, arriving 3 or more hours late domestically or 6 or more hours late internationally, a different origin or destination airport, an itinerary with more connections than you booked, or a downgrade to a lower class of service. The refund has to arrive within 7 business days for a credit card purchase and within 20 calendar days for other payment methods, and you should not have to ask for it.

Fees for services you paid for and did not receive come back too, which is how you recover a checked bag fee when the bag turns up two days later.

What counts as extraordinary circumstances

Extraordinary circumstances are events outside the airline’s control that it could not have avoided even with all reasonable measures, and the airline has to prove them. The regulation’s own examples are political instability, weather incompatible with operating the flight, security risks, unexpected flight safety shortcomings, air traffic management decisions and strikes affecting the carrier’s operation.

Two exclusions matter more than the list. Most ordinary technical problems do not count, because keeping aircraft serviceable is the airline’s own job. And strikes by the airline’s own staff do not release it from paying, while strikes external to the airline, such as action by air traffic controllers or airport staff, may qualify. Older write-ups still describe every strike as a blocker, and that has not been the position for years.

If the airline claims extraordinary circumstances, ask for the evidence. It is obliged to give that evidence to the national enforcement body and to affected passengers under national access-to-documents rules.

How to claim flight delay compensation or cancellation compensation

Filing a claim means writing to the airline first, escalating to the national regulator if it ignores you, and going to a claim company or a small claims court if it still refuses. Airlines are slow, and some do not reply at all.

I had the worst time with Iberia after a flight of mine was delayed for hours and then canceled outright. Their website form failed about half the times I tried it, and when they finally replied it came from a no-reply address, so answering meant filling in the entire form again and quoting the email they had sent me. Weeks of back and forth got my flights refunded, which I was owed anyway, while the compensation I was also entitled to went unpaid.

That experience is exactly why claim companies exist. They file for you and take a cut of what they recover, charging nothing if the case fails. The travelers quoted further down paid between 25% and 30% of their award, sometimes with a small fixed admin fee on top. You end up with less money and a great deal less aggravation.

How to claim for flight delays by yourself

Filing it yourself costs nothing and keeps the whole award, so try it before handing over a third. Work through the list below in order.

1. Gather the flight record: the flight number, the airline, the date, the scheduled and actual times, and the booking reference, for every passenger you are claiming for.
2. Quote the right law: EU261 for flights leaving the EU or arriving on an EU carrier, UK261 for UK departures and UK-carrier arrivals, and 14 CFR Part 250 or Part 260 for the United States.
3. Write to the airline in writing: ask at the gate for the airline’s claim channel, then submit through it and keep a copy. State the arrival delay in hours and minutes and name the article you are claiming under.
4. Escalate to the regulator: the Aviation Consumer Protection Division at the US Department of Transportation for American flights, the Civil Aviation Authority for UK ones, and the national enforcement body of the departure country inside the EU.
5. Take it to court if you have to: small claims work fine without a lawyer when you hold the documents and the text of the law, and the airline cannot show extraordinary circumstances.

Time limits are set by national law, not by the regulation, so they vary from country to country and can be years rather than months. Check the limit where you are filing before you decide a claim is too old to be worth trying.

Companies that help you claim airline compensation

Claim companies file on your behalf and take a percentage of what they win. The four below are the ones travelers we know have actually used, with their own accounts of how it went. The list is not exhaustive and most of these firms work the same way.

AirHelp

AirHelp handles claims across EU261, UK261 and several national schemes, and pays out on a no-win-no-fee basis.

“My flight from London to Amsterdam was delayed for over four hours. In the beginning, we were told it was the weather (for which you cannot claim), but they also told us that some part of the plane wasn’t working, so they needed to send us a new plane. That had us waiting for another pilot, and for that, you can claim! I was compensated €250 for the delay, but Airhelp took EUR €62.50 in service costs, so I ended up with €187.50. Still pretty good!”

• Nienke Krook from The Travel Tester

“After a flight delay of almost five hours, the Norwegian Air Shuttle staff notified us that our 4 p.m. flight from Oslo to New York City was canceled. The next flight which would leave Oslo at 9 a.m. wouldn’t arrive in New York City until 1 p.m. on Monday. Although Norwegian Air Shuttle comped my hotel room for the night, the entire process was a nightmare. I didn’t get to my hotel room till after midnight and I was exhausted. A few weeks later, I ran into AirHelp and found out through their site that I was eligible to submit a claim, which I did. My claim was accepted within 13 days and Norwegian had to pay $725.22 in total, of which $138.07 (25.38%) went to AirHelp. Not bad for a flight that I spent less than $300 on for a round-trip, right?!”

• Danielle from The Thought Card

Both of those claims started with a free eligibility check, which is the sensible first move even if you then file yourself. You can file a claim using AirHelp through our link.

EUclaim

EUclaim litigates when airlines refuse, which is what makes it useful on older and harder cases.

“In early 2011, I had a flight with Condor Airlines from Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic to Frankfurt, Germany that was delayed by over 24 hours. At that time, I didn’t know anything about the EU passenger rights and only learned about them much later. Thankfully, it is possible to claim compensation for flights up to four years after the incident. So in 2014, when I learned about my rights, I contacted EUclaim regarding my claim. They answered within one week stating that my claim was valid and that they would take care of it. All I had to do is sign a mandate letter for EUclaim. After around two months, I was contacted again and EUclaim told me that they would take Condor Airlines to court since they refused to pay the compensation. Another seven months later I got the message that they were successful in court and my money was transferred within a few working days. Of the normal €600 for a flight of that distance, I got €439.35 from EUclaim. An absolutely fair deal considering that they took all the risk of litigation. All I had to do was file my claim and respond to three e-mails.”

• Mike from 197travelstamps.com

“A few years back my flight from Amsterdam to Thailand got canceled due to a technical issue. I used EUclaim to file a claim and eventually got a compensation of €600. EUclaim takes 29% (success fee) + €29 for administration costs. I really recommend them because it’s easy, simple and they have great customer service. No cure, no pay is their motto, so although the fee is a little bit high, I try to use their service every time I have a problem with my flight.”

• Denise from Inhetvliegtuig.nl

Note the four-year window in Mike’s account: it applied in his country, not everywhere, which is the point about national limitation periods. You can file a claim via EUclaim here.

Fairplane

Fairplane works the German-speaking market and has absorbed TicketRefund.de, the brand two of the accounts below were filed under.

“When flying from Mauritius to Germany with Condor, my flight was actually delayed for almost 18 hours! The cause was a technical problem. The passengers were transported to a nearby hotel and we received complimentary food, drinks, and a hotel room and spent the day there, before heading back to the airport around midnight. A few months later, a friend told me about the German website TicketRefund.de and I gave it a try. I had to submit some information including my flight ticket and afterward, I waited and didn’t hear anything back for a few weeks, until I finally received an email, telling me that the claim was successful and that I would receive around €400 flight compensation. After submitting your case, you agree to a commission of up to 30% of your refund if they succeed. In return, the agency takes care of all legal procedures and has liability in case they lose.”

• Patrick from German Backpacker

“I used Fairplane in 2017 to get compensation for a flight I had taken in 2014, which had been significantly delayed. I had already tried to get compensation from Lufthansa, who I understood had operated the flight, but hadn’t had any luck, so I thought that even with a fee I would be better off getting something rather than nothing. It turned out after Fairplane’s investigation that the flight was actually with Air Dolomiti, which was one of the reasons I hadn’t made any progress with Lufthansa! They were able to successfully win my case, and after their 25% fee (+ VAT), a £20 insurance fee and a £4.80 cheque processing fee (all the fees were up front), I ended up with £134.”

• Laurence from Finding the Universe

Laurence’s case is the useful lesson here: the operating carrier is not always the airline whose name is on the ticket, and the claim has to name the operating carrier.

AirCashBack

AirCashBack works Polish cases and is worth knowing about when weather is only half the story.

“I was supposed to go for a short, 3-days long trip to Tbilisi, Georgia right before Christmas in 2016. The trouble has started already at the Warsaw airport when we were informed that our flight to Kutaisi will be 24 hours delayed, apparently due to the bad weather conditions in Georgia. We were offered accommodation in the nearby Marriott Hotel, including meals. Eventually, the flight was delayed for 25 hours. On the way back, we were again delayed for several hours due to the bad weather and the fact that ground personnel couldn’t deal with it. Again we were offered a hotel with lunch and left Georgia 14 hours after the scheduled departure time. Even when in both cases the weather was the main reason for the delay, the airline could have made this delay shorter and that’s what my complaint was about. After failing to settle with the airline I used the Polish company AirCashBack and they won both cases for me. Since the distance between Warsaw and Kutaisi is longer than 1500 kms I got €400 way but the company took a 25% fee. Still, 300€ seems like a decent compensation for my time and the annoying situation I was put into.”

• Kami from Kami and the Rest of the World

Kami’s case shows that “weather” is not automatically the end of a claim. If the airline could have shortened the delay and did not, that part of it is still arguable.

Other claim companies

Two further firms handle European claims and are worth a quote if the ones above decline your case.

• Claimingo, which files from the Netherlands and works in Dutch and English.
• FlightClaimEU, which asks how you found them, so choosing “blog” and typing “Wonderful Wanderings” helps us.

Your flight passenger rights when you’re on an overbooked flight

Being bumped from an oversold flight pays cash in both the United States and Europe, and the airline has to ask for volunteers before it bumps anyone against their will. Your ticket does not guarantee a seat: the contract of carriage you agreed to when you booked says so in plain terms.

What the contract does not do is leave you unprotected. Denied boarding rules are the one area where American passengers are better off than European ones, because the American payment is a multiple of your fare rather than a flat sum.

United States flights

Federal law requires American airlines to call for volunteers before bumping anyone involuntarily. Selection is not random, so knowing where you sit on the airline’s priority list is worth something.

That list usually weighs the fare you paid, your frequent flyer status, when you checked in and how complete your itinerary is. Check in at the 24-hour mark, hold a seat assignment on your boarding pass and avoid the cheapest fare bucket, and your seat is reasonably safe.

Voluntarily bumped

Volunteering trades your seat for whatever the airline offers, and it closes the door on any further claim. Four things are worth pinning down before you raise your hand.

1. Accept the offer knowingly: once you volunteer, the airline’s offer is all you get, because taking it waives your right to statutory denied boarding compensation.
2. Ask what the involuntary figure would be: the Department of Transportation requires airlines to tell volunteers whether their seat could have been bumped anyway and what that would have paid, which gives you a number to negotiate against.
3. Expect a reverse auction: staff are allowed to buy seats back from whoever accepts least, so if the gate is full of volunteers the price falls rather than rises.
4. Pin down the replacement flight and the voucher terms: ask whether you fly standby or hold a confirmed seat, and whether the voucher has expiry dates, blackout dates or an international exclusion.

Involuntarily bumped

Involuntary denied boarding pays a percentage of your one-way fare, capped in dollars, and the percentage turns on how late the airline gets you there. The current figures in 14 CFR Part 250 are below.

• Arrival within 1 hour of the original time: no compensation is required.
• More than 1 hour but less than 2 hours late on a domestic flight, or less than 4 hours on an international one: at least 200% of the fare to your destination or first stopover, or $1,075, whichever is lower.
• 2 or more hours late domestically, or 4 or more hours internationally, or no alternative offered at all: at least 400% of that fare, or $2,150, whichever is lower.

Anyone travelling on an award ticket or a consolidator ticket has their compensation worked out from the lowest cash, check or card price charged for a seat in the same cabin on that flight.

The payment is for the inconvenience only. You keep the full value of your original ticket, which either buys the replacement seat or comes back as an involuntary refund if you make your own arrangements. You are also owed a refund of any extra you paid for and did not receive, such as a bag fee or a seat selection. The airline must tell you your rights in writing at the time.

If the bump costs you more than the airline offers at the gate, you can negotiate with the complaints department or sue. Cashing the check effectively ends the negotiation, so do not bank it while you are still arguing.

EU flights

The EU pays denied boarding compensation on the same €250, €400 and €600 scale as cancellations, set by the distance of the flight you were bumped from. As in the United States, the airline has to call for volunteers first, and the same warning about voucher restrictions applies to anyone who steps forward.

The cash is for the inconvenience alone. The airline still owes you a rerouting or a full refund including taxes and fees, and the same care package you would get for a delay: meals and refreshments, a hotel if you are stuck overnight, transport to the hotel and back, and two free calls, emails or faxes.

These rights cover any flight leaving an EU airport whatever the airline, and inbound flights to the EU when the operating carrier is an EU airline.

Passenger rights for lost or late arrival baggage

Report the bag missing before you leave the airport, because the Property Irregularity Report is the document every later claim is built on. Ask for a PIR and a case number at the baggage desk, fill in every field, and leave no blanks.

Write the case number down separately and keep your boarding pass and bag tag receipts. The airline has to give you money for the essentials you need while the bag is missing, such as toiletries, underwear and a change of clothes, so keep those receipts as well.

When the bag turns up, the airline may ask you to collect it. You do not have to agree. Ask them to deliver it.

Deadlines are short and they are set by the Montreal Convention. A written complaint about damage to checked baggage has to reach the carrier within 7 days of receiving it, and a complaint about delay within 21 days of the bag being put at your disposal. Miss those windows and the claim is generally barred.

The liability ceilings are worth knowing because both changed recently. Under the Montreal Convention the limit for destruction, loss, damage or delay of baggage rose to 1,519 Special Drawing Rights per passenger on 28 December 2024, an inflation revision of 17.9%. On US domestic itineraries, 14 CFR Part 254 separately forbids airlines from limiting liability below $4,700 per passenger. Older articles quoting figures in the low thousands of dollars are out of date on both counts.

Most airlines treat a bag as lost once about 30 days have passed, then move to a settlement based on an itemised list of what was inside. Each carrier sets its own filing deadline for that final claim, so ask for it in writing rather than assuming.

Denied boarding when flight is not overbooked

Airlines can refuse to carry you for reasons that have nothing to do with overbooking, and those reasons are listed in their own conditions of carriage. Typical grounds include being intoxicated, disorderly behaviour, refusing crew instructions, carrying prohibited items, inadequate travel documents, and travelling late in pregnancy without a doctor’s letter.

Cabin crew decide on the spot whether your situation fits one of those categories, for their safety and everyone else’s. There is no requirement to report the decision to a regulator, so arguing at the door achieves nothing. Comply, get off, then ask for a new ticket immediately.

As long as you broke no law, this is still involuntary denied boarding, and the airline has to refund you or rebook you. What you do not get is the statutory denied boarding payment, because that one is tied to oversold flights.

If you think the grounds were invented, file a complaint with the Department of Transportation, or sue in small claims for your financial losses. Conditions of carriage are drafted heavily in the airline’s favour, so these cases are hard to win. Writing to the airline directly and asking for vouchers or miles is usually the route that produces something, because carriers settle these in kind rather than in cash.

Does travel insurance help?

Travel insurance fills the gaps the regulations leave open, and those gaps are wider than most people expect. It pays where the airline’s duty stops: separate tickets, missed cruise departures, a hotel night nobody owes you, and a bag delayed for a day.

Travel or trip insurance

A comprehensive policy is the version worth buying if you are booking anything expensive or complicated. Most plans include the cover below.

• Baggage cover: replacement value for belongings lost or damaged in transit.
• Baggage delay cover: essentials bought while your bag is elsewhere.
• Trip delay cover: meals and accommodation once a delay passes the policy’s trigger.
• Missed connection cover: the onward ticket you lose when the first leg runs late.
• Trip interruption cover: the unused part of a trip you have to abandon.

The missed connection line is the one that pays for the policy. Airlines have no duty to fix a connection on a different carrier’s ticket, and no duty at all if you miss a cruise departure because a plane was late. Insurance covers exactly that hole. Policies also come with a 24/7 assistance line, which matters more than it sounds at 2am in a terminal where you do not speak the language.

Claiming works the same way as claiming from an airline: documents, receipts and records decide it. Read the policy wording on trigger times and caps before you buy, because those two numbers are where cheap policies and useful ones differ. SafetyWing’s Nomad Insurance is the one we use for long trips, and it can be started after you have already left home, which most travel policies refuse to do.

Insurance focusing on air travel

Flight-specific policies cover only the things that go wrong at an airport, which makes them cheap and narrow. Products such as Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection’s AirCare pay fixed amounts for a delay, a missed connection, a tarmac delay and delayed or lost bags, and they can usually be bought within hours of departure.

They contain no medical cover at all, which is both why they cost so little and why they are not a substitute for a proper policy on a long or remote trip. Check the current payout table and the qualifying delay length on the insurer’s own page before buying, because those numbers are revised and the figures quoted in older articles are unreliable.

“Cancel at any point” airline insurance

The cancellation cover an airline sells you at checkout is generally the weakest option on the page. It is sold as cancel-for-any-reason and then hedged with exclusions that let the airline decline, and changing the canceled flight still attracts a fee.

Buying an independent policy from an insurer rather than from the carrier costs about the same and pays out on more of the things that actually happen.

What happens if you miss your flight?

Call the airline before your flight leaves, because a seat they can resell is a seat they will help you replace. Agents who get that call often rebook you over the phone; agents who find out when you arrive have already given the seat away for nothing.

Expect a rebooking fee, a fare difference, or occasionally both. Carriers frequently charge only one of the two, especially if they can get you out the same day, and asking is free.

The one informal exception is what American travelers call the flat tire rule: turn up within a couple of hours of your original departure with a genuine, verifiable reason such as a blowout or a road accident, and many agents will rebook you without the fee. It appears in no contract of carriage, it is not a legal right and no airline is obliged to honour it, so treat it as a favour to ask for rather than a rule to quote.

Every missed-flight outcome comes down to the agent and their supervisor. Be polite, explain what you did to get there on time, ask about the flat tire rule by name, and you avoid more fees than arguing ever will.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

Four things we learned the hard way while researching and using these rules are listed below.

1. Write down the reason at the gate, with the time. Iberia gave me one explanation on the day and a different one in writing weeks later, and having the first version in my notes was the only thing that made the second version arguable.
2. Claim on arrival delay, not departure delay. European compensation is measured at the aircraft door at your final destination, so a flight that leaves 4 hours late and lands 2 hours 50 minutes late pays nothing, and one that leaves an hour late and misses a connection can pay €600.
3. Name the operating carrier, not the airline on your ticket. Laurence’s Lufthansa claim went nowhere for three years because the flight was actually operated by Air Dolomiti, and the claim only moved once the right carrier was named.
4. Do not trust a compensation letter template you find in an old article. The Civil Aviation Authority’s own downloadable template, linked from travel sites for years, no longer exists at that address, so start from the CAA’s current guidance pages instead.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the first-hand account of the Iberia claim in this post is hers. The team covers air passenger rights for independent travellers, including the claim companies, travel insurance and card benefits worth using when a flight falls apart, and updates this page when the compensation amounts, liability limits and refund rules change.