Flight refund or compensation: what you are owed

The refund (Article 8) gives you back the price of your ticket. Compensation (Article 7) is a fixed sum, €250, €400 or €600 per passenger depending on the distance, for the disruption itself, whatever you paid for the ticket. The cost of care (Article 9) covers what the airline should have provided while you waited: meals, refreshments, a hotel and transport to it.

They have different conditions and can be owed together: a flight cancelled 2 days before departure for a technical fault gives you the refund (or another flight), compensation and your expenses.

You can choose a refund instead of another flight when your flight is cancelled, whatever the reason, when you are denied boarding, and when your flight is delayed by 5 hours or more and you decide not to travel. The airline must refund you within 7 days, in money, the full price you paid, taxes and charges included, for the parts of the trip not flown, and for parts already flown if the trip no longer serves its purpose, with a flight back to your starting point.

If your flight was part of a package holiday, the refund of the package comes from the organiser under the package travel rules; compensation for the flight is still owed by the airline.

If you booked through a travel agent or booking site, the airline must refund the full price you paid, including the agent's commission, unless that commission was set without the airline's knowledge (Court of Justice, Harms, C-601/17, 2018). An airline refunding only its own fare when you paid more through an agent is worth challenging.

Compensation is owed when you arrived 3 hours or more late, when your flight was cancelled less than 14 days before departure, or when you were denied boarding, unless the airline proves extraordinary circumstances. It does not depend on the ticket price: a €30 ticket can give €400. Accepting a refund, or a replacement flight, does not cost you the compensation.

Both the refund and the compensation are owed in money: cash, bank transfer or cheque. The airline may pay in travel vouchers only if you agree to it in writing (Article 7(3)). If you were offered a voucher and declined it, you remain entitled to the money.

If the airline did not provide meals, a hotel or transport while you waited, it must reimburse what you reasonably spent: keep every receipt. If the disruption cost you more, such as a non-refundable hotel night or a missed event, you may claim further damages under national law; the airline may then deduct the compensation already paid (Article 12).

Compensation is usually not due when:

• the flight arrived less than 3 hours late;
• you were told about the cancellation at least 14 days before departure;
• the disruption was caused by extraordinary circumstances that could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken — for example severe weather, air traffic control restrictions, a security risk, or a strike by staff who do not work for the airline;

• Delayed flight
• Cancelled flight
• Denied boarding and overbooking
• Strikes
• EU261, the regulation
• Airlines