Lufthansa flight delay and cancellation compensation

Lufthansa flight delay and cancellation claims pay €250 to €600 per passenger under EU261. You qualify if you land three or more hours late at your final destination, if Lufthansa cancels with under 14 days' notice, or if it denies you boarding. On one booking, a missed Frankfurt or Munich connection counts at the journey's end.

Which law covers a Lufthansa flight delay?

Lufthansa is Germany's flag carrier, built around hubs at Frankfurt and Munich, and it holds a German operating licence. As an EU carrier it is covered by EU261 in both directions:

• Every departure from an EU/EEA airport, wherever the flight is going
• Every arrival into the EU/EEA, including long-haul inbound sectors from North America, Asia, Africa and the Gulf
• Departures from and arrivals into the UK fall under UK261, which mirrors the same structure in sterling

Lufthansa also sits at the centre of a group that includes SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Eurowings and ITA Airways, and it sells a great deal of regional flying operated by partners such as Air Dolomiti and Lufthansa CityLine. Your rights attach to the operating carrier, so check which airline actually flew the aircraft rather than whose code is on the ticket.

How much can you claim from Lufthansa, and when?

Compensation becomes payable when you reach your final destination three or more hours late, when a flight is cancelled with under 14 days' notice, or when you are denied boarding on an oversold flight.

• EUR 250 — up to 1,500 km, such as Frankfurt to Vienna
• EUR 400 — intra-EU flights over 1,500 km and other flights of 1,500 to 3,500 km, such as Munich to Athens or Cairo
• EUR 600 — flights over 3,500 km, which covers most of the intercontinental network

For long-haul routes only, Article 7(2) allows a 50 per cent reduction where the re-routed arrival is less than four hours late, bringing EUR 600 down to EUR 300. The distinction between a 3h50 and a 4h05 arrival is therefore worth EUR 300 per passenger.

Because Frankfurt and Munich are connecting hubs, the most common Lufthansa claim is not a single late flight but a missed connection. Where all sectors are on one booking, the delay is measured at the end of the journey, so a modest hold in Frankfurt that pushes you onto the next day's onward flight can produce a full long-haul claim.

When does Lufthansa not have to pay compensation?

No compensation is due where the cause was an extraordinary circumstance — severe weather, ATC flow control, airport closures, security incidents, bird strikes or a passenger medical emergency — that could not have been avoided even with all reasonable measures.

Two things are commonly misstated:

• Lufthansa must prove the defence. A generic reference to "operational disruption" is not evidence of anything, and an unsupported claim of bad weather should be tested against the conditions actually recorded that day.
• Strikes split two ways. Industrial action by the airline's own pilots or cabin crew is generally treated as inherent in running an airline and does not defeat a claim. Strikes by air-traffic controllers, airport security staff or ground handlers employed by third parties usually do count as extraordinary.

Right-to-care obligations survive even when compensation does not: meals, communications and a hotel for an overnight wait are owed whatever the cause.

How do you make a Lufthansa claim, and where can you escalate it?

Keep the booking reference, boarding passes for every sector, and the notification of the change. Note the actual arrival time at your final destination. If you paid for food or a hotel because none was offered, keep the receipts — those are recoverable separately.

Response times vary widely and tend to lengthen after storms, strikes and system outages. If a claim is rejected without a substantiated reason, it can be taken to Germany's conciliation body for public transport (söp), to the national enforcement body in the country of departure, or to court, subject to the local limitation period.

Our eligibility check is free. If we recover your money we charge a fixed EUR 39 success fee and nothing otherwise.

How to claim Lufthansa compensation

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

For the law behind the figure, the flight delay compensation guide covers arrival delays and the cancellation compensation guide covers a flight that never operated. If Lufthansa has already refused you, the case law summary sets out what the courts have said about the usual excuses.