Edelweiss Air flight delay and cancellation compensation

Edelweiss Air flight delay and cancellation: your rights

Edelweiss is the leisure airline of the Lufthansa Group's Swiss arm, flying holiday routes from Zurich. Switzerland is not in the EU, which usually narrows a passenger's rights — here it does not, because Switzerland applies EU261 through its air transport agreement with the European Union.

In practice that means:

• Departing Zurich or any Swiss airport — the EU261 rules apply, with the same thresholds and the same amounts.
• Departing any EU or EEA airport — covered in the ordinary way.
• Departing the UK — UK261 applies instead, in sterling.

Long-haul leisure, top-band claims

Edelweiss flies a mixed network, and the long-haul half of it sits in the highest compensation band:

• €600 for routes over 3,500 km — the Caribbean, East Africa, North and South America
• €400 between 1,500 and 3,500 km
• €250 up to 1,500 km

On a route over 3,500 km delivered between three and four hours late, Article 7(2) lets the airline halve the payment. Past four hours the full amount stands. Every passenger on the booking is owed separately.

Holiday flights and package bookings

Much of what Edelweiss carries is sold inside a package. That does not reduce your claim against the airline: the flight is a flight, and EU261 applies to it whoever sold the trip.

It may also give you a second, separate claim against the tour operator for the part of the holiday you lost. The two answer different things and are made to different companies. Our guide to package holiday compensation sets out how they sit alongside each other.

What to do

Ask for the cause in writing before leaving the airport, keep the boarding passes, and record when the doors opened rather than when the aircraft touched down. On a long-haul leisure route the difference between two hours fifty and three hours five is €600 a head.

How to claim Edelweiss flight delay compensation

Start with the flight itself. Our free flight check reads the recorded departure and arrival times for your Edelweiss flight and tells you which band it falls in, in about two minutes.

A Edelweiss compensation claim turns on the arrival time and on the reason the airline gives, so read both before you write. The flight delay compensation guide sets out the bands, and the cancellation compensation guide covers Edelweiss cancellation compensation for a flight that never operated. If the airline refuses, the case law summary sets out what the courts have accepted as an excuse and what they have thrown out.