Berlin Brandenburg flight delay and cancellation compensation

Berlin Brandenburg flight delay or cancellation: what are your rights?

Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) is the capital's single airport, serving a largely point-to-point network with big operations from easyJet, Ryanair and Eurowings alongside Lufthansa and a wide set of European carriers. EU261 attaches a fixed payment when you reach your final destination three or more hours late: €250 for routes up to 1,500 km, €400 for 1,500 to 3,500 km, and €600 above 3,500 km.

A cancellation announced with less than fourteen days' notice and involuntary denied boarding trigger the same bands, provided the cause sat within the airline's control.

Which rules apply at Berlin Brandenburg

Germany is an EU member state, so EU261 covers every departure from BER whatever airline operates it — a low-cost carrier and a long-haul flag carrier leaving Berlin are bound on identical terms. A flight arriving into BER from outside the EU/EEA is covered only when the operating airline is an EU/EEA or UK carrier, the usual catch on return legs from further afield. On a single-booking itinerary connecting through another hub, both the three-hour test and the distance band are measured against your final destination.

What to do at the airport

Ask the airline for its reason in writing — an app notification or email outlasts a gate announcement. Note when the aircraft doors opened at your final destination, since that timestamp decides whether the three-hour threshold was crossed. Duty of care begins at two hours on short routes, three on medium and four on long-haul: meals, refreshments, communication and a hotel with transfers if you are held overnight, whatever the cause. Keep boarding passes and receipts.

Which BER delays are the airline's own doing?

BER's schedule leans heavily on fast low-cost rotations, so a late inbound aircraft in the morning is still shaping evening departures. Winter de-icing, summer thunderstorms across eastern Germany and European air traffic flow restrictions all feature regularly. Technical faults, crew shortages and commercial cancellations sit within the airline's control and remain compensable. Where extraordinary circumstances are pleaded, the burden of proof is on the airline: strikes by its own crew are generally not extraordinary, while air traffic control or airport-staff strikes usually are.

Claiming for a flight from Berlin Brandenburg

Run the free eligibility check and we confirm whether EU261 governs the flight and which band applies. We submit the claim, chase it and challenge unevidenced refusals; German passengers can escalate unresolved disputes to the Luftfahrt-Bundesamt (LBA), the national enforcement body, or to the söp arbitration board free of charge — routes we manage as part of the claim. The eligibility check is free. If we recover your compensation we charge a fixed EUR 39 success fee — the same whether you're owed EUR 250 or EUR 600. No win, no fee.

How to claim Berlin Brandenburg compensation

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

A Berlin Brandenburg compensation claim turns on two things: the arrival time, and the reason the airline gives.

For a late arrival, read the flight delay compensation guide. For a flight that never flew, read the cancellation compensation guide. It covers Berlin Brandenburg cancellation compensation too. Has the airline said no? The case law summary sets out what the courts make of the usual excuses.