--- title: "easyJet Flight Delay and Cancellation Compensation" url: https://flightcompensations.com/airlines/easyjet author: "Jaacov Sonenblick" published: 2026-09-04 updated: 2026-10-06 publisher: FlightCompensations summary: "easyJet flies under British, Austrian and Swiss licences — here is how EU261 and UK261 apply to your route and what a delay is worth." --- # easyJet flight delay and cancellation compensation easyJet flies under British, Austrian and Swiss licences — here is how EU261 and UK261 apply to your route and what a delay is worth. **easyJet flight delay** and cancellation claims **pay** €250 to €600 per passenger under EU261, or £220 to £520 under UK261. You qualify if you reach your final destination three or more hours late, if easyJet cancels with under 14 days' notice, or if it denies you boarding on an oversold flight. The fare makes no difference. ## Which rules cover an easyJet flight delay: EU261 or UK261? easyJet began as a British short-haul carrier based at London Luton and still operates a large UK fleet. It also holds an **Austrian operating licence** through easyJet Europe, registered in Vienna, and a **Swiss licence** through easyJet Switzerland in Geneva and Basel. The airline you booked with is the brand; the entity that actually operates your flight is shown on your confirmation and on the aircraft registration. That structure sounds like a complication and rarely is, because coverage lands the same way most of the time: - **Any departure from an EU/EEA airport** is covered by EU261 regardless of which easyJet entity flies it. - **Any departure from a UK airport** is covered by UK261. - **Arrivals into the EU/EEA from a non-EU country** are covered when the operating carrier is an EU airline — which easyJet Europe is. - **Arrivals into the UK** are covered by UK261 when flown by a UK or EU carrier. You do not need to work this out yourself. A free check settles it from the flight number and date. ## What triggers an easyJet compensation payment? Three situations produce fixed compensation, and none of them depend on what you paid: - Arriving at your **final destination three hours or more late** - A **cancellation with less than 14 days' notice**, unless the replacement flight lands close to your original schedule - **Denied boarding** because the flight was oversold, provided you presented yourself on time A delay of five hours or more also gives you the right to abandon the trip entirely and take a full refund, separately from any compensation. ## How much compensation you could receive - **EUR 250** for routes of 1,500 km or less — Gatwick to Amsterdam, Milan to Naples - **EUR 400** for intra-EU routes over 1,500 km and other routes up to 3,500 km — most of easyJet's Greek, Spanish and Turkish flying - **EUR 600** for the small number of routes beyond 3,500 km UK261 pays **GBP 220, GBP 350 or GBP 520** on the same distance bands. Where a long-haul delay is between three and four hours, Article 7(2) allows the airline to halve the top figure. ## When easyJet does not have to pay Compensation falls away if the cause was an **extraordinary circumstance** outside easyJet's control and unavoidable even with all reasonable measures. Storms, fog, lightning strikes on the airframe, ATC flow restrictions, runway closures and security incidents are the usual examples, and Gatwick and Amsterdam in particular are prone to slot and capacity constraints. The **burden of proof sits with the airline**, not with you. It must show both the cause and that it did what it reasonably could — including looking at whether an earlier aircraft swap or a seat on another carrier would have got you there sooner. A knock-on delay from an earlier rotation is not automatically extraordinary just because the first disruption was. ## How do you claim from easyJet, and what happens next? Gather the booking reference, boarding passes, the cancellation or delay notification, and receipts for any meals, calls or hotel nights you paid for yourself. Those expenses are recoverable under the separate right to care and sit alongside compensation rather than replacing it. Airlines commonly acknowledge a claim quickly and take considerably longer to decide it, and response times lengthen during disruption peaks. If a claim is refused with a thin explanation, the next steps are the UK Civil Aviation Authority's alternative dispute resolution route for UK flights, the relevant national enforcement body in the EU, or court. We run the whole process, and the eligibility check costs nothing. Our fee is a **flat EUR 39, payable only if money is recovered**; the airline's compensation is yours. ## If easyJet says no: AviationADR easyJet is a member of **AviationADR**, one of the two dispute-resolution schemes approved by the UK Civil Aviation Authority. The scheme is free for passengers: if easyJet rejects your claim, or lets it stall for eight weeks, you can escalate there, and a decision you accept binds the airline. Claims on EU departures can instead go to the national enforcement body of the departure country. ## How do you claim easyJet flight delay compensation? Start with the flight itself. Our [free flight check](/claim) reads the recorded times for your easyJet flight and tells you which band it falls in, in about two minutes. For the law behind the figure, the [flight delay compensation guide](/flight-delay-compensation) covers arrival delays and the [cancellation compensation guide](/flight-cancellation-compensation) covers a flight that never operated. If easyJet has already refused you, the [case law summary](/passenger-rights/case-law) sets out what the courts have said about the usual excuses. ## Frequently asked questions ### Does it matter whether easyJet UK, easyJet Europe or easyJet Switzerland flew me? It only matters for flights arriving into the EU/EEA from a non-EU country, where EU261 requires the operating carrier to be an EU airline — easyJet Europe qualifies, easyJet UK does not. For every departure from an EU/EEA airport, and for every UK departure under UK261, the operating entity makes no difference at all. ### easyJet gave me a voucher instead of cash. Do I have to accept it? No. Compensation under EU261 and UK261 is payable in money, and you can only be given a voucher if you agree to it in writing. Accepting one may be treated as settling the claim, so it is worth checking the value against the statutory amount before you click anything. ### My easyJet flight was cancelled and I booked my own replacement. What can I recover? You can claim the fixed compensation if the notice was under 14 days and the cause was within the airline's control, plus either a refund of the unused ticket or the reasonable cost of the replacement travel you arranged. Keep the original cancellation message and the new booking receipt, because the airline will compare the two. ### Is a delayed easyJet connection covered if both flights were on one booking? Yes. Where the flights are on a single reservation, compensation is assessed on how late you reach the final destination on that booking, not on the length of the first delay. A short delay that causes a missed connection and a much later arrival can therefore still qualify. ## Sources - https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32004R0261 - https://www.caa.co.uk/passengers/resolving-travel-problems/delays-and-cancellations/ - https://curia.europa.eu/juris/liste.jsf?num=C-402/07 - https://curia.europa.eu/juris/liste.jsf?num=C-549/07 - https://curia.europa.eu/juris/liste.jsf?num=C-195/17 - https://curia.europa.eu/juris/liste.jsf?num=C-452/13 Read the full page with the claim check at https://flightcompensations.com/airlines/easyjet