What to do when your flight is cancelled

First, know your two separate rights

A cancellation triggers two independent entitlements, and airlines routinely hope you will confuse them.

The first is a refund or re-routing. If your flight is cancelled — for any reason, including weather — the airline must offer you the choice between a full refund of the unused ticket and an alternative flight to your destination. This right has no exceptions. Take the option that suits your plans, and know that choosing one does not affect the second entitlement.

The second is fixed compensation of €250–€600 per passenger under EU Regulation 261/2004 (and its UK equivalent). This applies when the airline gave you less than 14 days' notice of the cancellation and cannot prove the cause was an extraordinary circumstance outside its control. Compensation is per person, fixed by route distance, and completely separate from your refund — you can receive both.

How much compensation is worth

The amounts are set by flight distance, not by what you paid for the ticket:

• €250 for flights up to 1,500 km
• €400 for flights between 1,500 and 3,500 km
• €600 for flights over 3,500 km

A family of four on a cancelled medium-haul flight can be owed €1,600 — again, on top of the refund or replacement flight.

At the airport: the checklist

1. Ask the airline, in writing, why the flight was cancelled. The reason determines whether compensation is payable, and the answer given on the day is harder to rewrite later. An email or chat message from the airline counts.
2. Choose refund or re-routing — the choice is yours, not the airline's.
3. Claim the care you are owed while you wait. From two hours of waiting the airline must provide meals and refreshments; if you are re-routed the next day, a hotel and transport to it. If the airline does not organise this, pay, keep every receipt, and claim it back — reasonable expenses are recoverable even when compensation is not.
4. Keep everything: booking confirmation, boarding passes, the cancellation message with its timestamp, and receipts.

When the airline says "extraordinary circumstances"

Airlines refuse many claims by calling the cause extraordinary. The legal test is narrow: the circumstance must be genuinely outside the airline's control and unavoidable even with all reasonable measures. Severe weather and air-traffic-control restrictions can qualify. A technical fault discovered in maintenance generally does not — the courts treat aircraft upkeep as part of running an airline. A strike by the airline's own staff is usually not extraordinary either; a third-party strike may be. Crucially, the burden of proof is on the airline: a one-line refusal naming "operational reasons" proves nothing.

Deadlines and what not to sign

Time limits to bring a claim vary by country — from one year to six — so a cancellation from last summer may still be claimable. Be careful with vouchers: accepting a voucher instead of the cash you are owed, or signing a settlement that waives further claims, can end your compensation rights. Read before you sign, and remember the airline must offer cash for the refund entitlement if you prefer it.

Check your flight

Enter your flight number and date and we will check the route, the distance, the recorded delay and the notice period against the regulation — it takes about fifteen seconds, and you pay our fixed fee only if the claim succeeds.