When must the airline feed you and pay for a hotel?

A London to Barcelona flight covers about 1,150 km. If it leaves 2 hours late, the airline owes you food and drink. A flight from London to Athens, about 2,400 km, needs 3 hours. A long-haul flight to New York needs 4 hours.

Articles 6 and 9 of Regulation 261/2004 tie these thresholds to the flight's distance, not to how long it lasts. Up to 1,500 km, meals and refreshments start at 2 hours. From 1,500 to 3,500 km, or on an intra-EU flight over 1,500 km, they start at 3 hours. Every other flight triggers them at 4 hours.

As soon as the threshold passes, ask the gate staff for a voucher. If they give nothing, buy something sensible and keep the receipt. The same care rules apply when the airline cancels or refuses you boarding.

UK passengers keep the same care rights under the retained UK version of the regulation.

Your 900 km flight leaves 5 hours late, and the airline hands you a £5 voucher. At many airports that buys a coffee, not a meal. You can buy a modest meal and a soft drink and claim the difference in writing.

Article 9 of Regulation 261/2004 describes meals and refreshments, not a price. In practice, the test is whether the voucher lets you eat and drink properly during the wait. A long wait at an expensive airport calls for more than a short wait at a cheap one.

Keep it reasonable. A sandwich, a hot meal and water will look fair to an airline or a court. A bottle of wine or a restaurant tasting menu will not.

Send copies of the voucher, your receipts and your boarding pass to the airline that operated the flight. Keep the originals. UK passengers have the same care rights under the retained UK regulation.

Let's say your 1,200 km flight leaves 6 hours late, across lunch and dinner. The airline gives you one €8 voucher. You buy two simple meals and water for €26. You can claim the €18 you paid yourself.

A voucher is how the airline delivers care, but it does not cap what the airline owes. If the voucher was too small for the wait, the shortfall is still care the airline failed to give.

Write to the airline that operated the flight with the flight number, the date and the delay. Attach copies of the voucher and the itemised receipts, and keep the originals. Leave out alcohol and anything that looks like a treat.

The duty comes from Articles 6 and 9 of Regulation 261/2004. It holds even when no cash compensation is due, as in bad weather. The Court of Justice confirmed this in McDonagh v Ryanair.

A real-world pattern: during big disruptions, airlines run out of vouchers or close the desk. That does not end the care duty in Articles 6 and 9 of Regulation 261/2004. Once the delay passes the threshold for your flight, meals and refreshments are still owed.

The Court of Justice held in McDonagh v Ryanair that care continues even in extraordinary circumstances. UK passengers keep the same care rights under the retained regulation.

A 2,000 km flight from Manchester to Athens leaves 4 hours late. No staff appear and no voucher arrives. You buy a meal and a soft drink for £14. That cost sits within what the airline owed you after 3 hours.

Claim from the airline that operated the flight. Include the booking reference, the flight number and copies of itemised receipts. Card slips alone may not show what you bought. Keep the originals at home.

Your flight from Dublin to Lisbon is cancelled at 21:00, and the new flight leaves at 09:00. The airline owes you a room for the night, dinner, breakfast and transport to and from the hotel.

Article 9 of Regulation 261/2004 sets this duty whenever the disruption makes an overnight stay necessary. A flight moved from 20:00 to 07:00 the next morning is the classic case. So is a cancellation where the airline rebooks you on a flight the following day.

The airline should arrange the room and the transfers itself. If it hands you a hotel voucher and a bus ticket, use them. If it gives you nothing, book a sensible room nearby and keep the receipt.

The rule covers flights leaving an EU or UK airport on any airline. It also covers flights into Europe on a European or UK airline. The Court of Justice confirmed in McDonagh v Ryanair that care continues during extraordinary circumstances.

Consider a late-night cancellation of your flight from Rome to Edinburgh. Nobody staffs the desk, and the app says to book a hotel. You pay €120 for an airport hotel and €15 for the shuttle. Claim both, with the receipts and a screenshot of the app.

Under Article 9 of Regulation 261/2004, the hotel duty belongs to the airline. Ideally it books the room and the transfer for you. When staff are absent or tell you to sort it out yourself, you can book your own and seek repayment.

Two things help your claim. First, show that you asked the airline for help. An app screenshot, a chat log or a note of what the desk said all work. Second, show that your choice was reasonable. A standard room near the airport is easy to defend, but a five-star suite is not.

Send the claim to the airline that operated the flight. UK passengers have the same right under the retained UK regulation.

To see how it works, picture an airline policy of €100 per night. You reach the hotel desk at midnight, and the cheapest room left costs €180. Claim the full €180 with a screenshot of the prices. If the airline pays only €100, you can challenge the rest.

Many airlines say they will repay up to a set figure per night. That figure is the airline's own policy. Article 9 of Regulation 261/2004 sets no such limit. What matters is whether your choice was reasonable in the circumstances.

Context counts. During a big disruption, every airport hotel may fill within an hour. The only room left may cost far more than usual. A screenshot of a booking site showing the cheaper hotels sold out helps prove that.

Send the claim to the airline that operated the flight first. If it will not pay a fair amount, escalate to the national enforcement body or a court in the right country.

Your flight from Palma to Bristol is cancelled at 01:00. The airline books a hotel 12 km away but gives no transfer, and no buses run until 06:00. A €35 taxi there and back the next morning is a reasonable claim.

Article 9 of Regulation 261/2004 puts transport to and from the hotel alongside the room itself. The airline should provide a shuttle, a coach or a voucher. When it does not, you can arrange the cheapest sensible option.

A taxi is easier to justify when public transport has stopped or the hotel is far from the station. It is harder when a free hotel shuttle runs every 20 minutes. Show the airline why the taxi was necessary.

Keep the taxi receipt, a screenshot of the timetable and any message from the airline. Claim from the airline that operated the flight. UK passengers keep this right under the retained regulation.

Snow closes Geneva, and the airline cancels your evening flight to London. The next seat is two days later. The airline owes you hotel nights, meals and transfers for that wait. It may not owe you the £220 compensation.

EU261 contains two separate rights. Compensation is the fixed €250, €400 or €600 payment. Care is the food, drinks, hotel and transport during the wait. Genuinely extraordinary events can excuse the airline from compensation. They cannot excuse it from care.

Severe weather may count as extraordinary. Even then, the airline must prove the weather caused the cancellation and that it took all reasonable measures. It must back that up with evidence.

Article 9 of Regulation 261/2004 holds the care duty, and McDonagh v Ryanair (C-12/11) confirmed it continues in extraordinary circumstances. UK passengers keep the same right under the retained regulation. Keep receipts for every night and meal you pay for yourself.

Snow closes your departure airport, and the airline's first free seat home leaves in four days. You take it. The airline owes four nights in a reasonable hotel, plus meals and transfers. That holds even though the snow may excuse it from compensation.

Airlines sometimes offer one night and then go quiet. Under Article 9 of Regulation 261/2004, care does not stop at the first morning. It follows the wait until the airline gets you on a flight, or until you choose a refund instead of rerouting. The Court of Justice held in McDonagh v Ryanair that care continues in extraordinary circumstances.

Your own choices matter here. Article 8 lets you choose a refund, rerouting at the earliest opportunity, or rerouting at a later date that suits you. If you pick a later date for your own convenience, the extra nights are your own.

Send the claim, with receipts for each night, to the airline that operated the flight.

Air traffic control limits hold your 1,000 km flight from Paris to Milan for 3 hours. The airline may not owe the €250 compensation. It still owes you food and drink from the 2-hour mark.

One phrase at the gate can sound as if it ends every right. It does not. Extraordinary circumstances are a defence to fixed compensation only. The care duty in Articles 6 and 9 of Regulation 261/2004 stands on its own, as McDonagh v Ryanair confirmed.

The airline still has to prove the event was extraordinary, and Wallentin-Hermann v Alitalia sets the test. The airline must show the event caused your delay and that it took all reasonable steps. A technical problem with the aircraft does not count. A strike by the airline's own staff generally does not count either.

If the airline gave you nothing, keep your receipts and claim the cost.

A routine technical fault delays your 2,500 km flight overnight, and you reach your destination 15 hours late. The airline owes your hotel, meals and transfers. It also owes €400 compensation, because a fault like that is generally not extraordinary.

Care and compensation do different jobs. Care, under Article 9 of Regulation 261/2004, covers your needs whatever the cause. Compensation, under Article 7, is a fixed sum for the lost time. It depends on the cause and on how late you arrived, and Sturgeon v Condor applies it to delays.

Compensation follows distance. EU flights pay €250 up to 1,500 km and €600 over 3,500 km. The €400 band covers 1,500 to 3,500 km and intra-EU flights over that. UK261 pays £220, £350 or £520 in the same bands. The delay counts from when a door opens at your final destination.

Claim both from the operating airline, with receipts for the care costs.

Let's say an overnight cancellation costs you €22 for two meals, €130 for a hotel and €30 for taxis. Your claim lists each item with its receipt. It also includes a screenshot showing the airline offered no hotel.

The care rules in Article 9 of Regulation 261/2004 let you recover what the airline should have provided. To prove it, show what you paid for and when. An itemised receipt does both. A card statement shows only an amount and a shop name.

Build a small folder as you go. Photograph each receipt on the spot, because thermal paper fades. Screenshot the departure board, the app notices and any chat with the airline. Note the times you asked for help.

Send the claim to the airline that operated the flight. A separate claim for compensation can go in the same letter.

Airlines sometimes treat a self-booked hotel as a personal choice. That answer misses the point when the airline owed the room and did not provide it. Your reply should link the hotel to the disruption.

Your flight is cancelled at 20:00, and the new one leaves at 08:00. The app says no hotels are available through the airline, so you book a €95 room nearby. That room was a direct result of the cancellation, not a holiday extra.

Set out the timeline in a few lines. Give the original departure, the cancellation or delay, and the new departure the next day. Say you asked for a hotel and what the airline said. Attach the booking, the receipt and any screenshot.

If the airline still refuses, escalate. Each EU country has a national enforcement body for Regulation 261/2004, and courts hear these claims under national time limits. In the UK, those limits are 6 years in England and Wales and 5 in Scotland.

Consider a cancelled flight from Lisbon to Dublin where the airline's next seat leaves in four days. You can accept and claim care for those four days. You can take a refund within 7 days and travel another way. Or you can book a sooner flight and claim the reasonable cost.

Whichever you pick, make your choice in writing. If you want the earliest possible flight, say so. If the airline offers only a flight days away, ask whether anything sooner exists. Keep a record of each answer.

Waiting has a cost for the airline too. Article 8 of Regulation 261/2004 gives you the three options. Article 9 makes the airline provide care while you wait for its rerouting. That means food, drinks, hotel nights and transfers for each day you stay.

Section 4.2 of the 2024 Commission Guidelines covers self-rerouting costs. You must show the new ticket was necessary and that you kept the cost down, so keep screenshots.

A real-world pattern: a train or coach gets you home sooner than the next flight. Rerouting does not always mean another plane. What counts is whether the airline gave you a compliant option first.

If it did, and you chose to travel another way anyway, the cost is usually yours. If it offered nothing, or only a flight days later, a reasonable ground journey makes a stronger claim.

Your short evening flight from Brussels to Amsterdam is cancelled. The airline offers a flight two days later, but a train leaves in an hour for €60. You take it, keep the ticket and the airline's offer, and claim the €60.

Your claim rests on Article 8 of Regulation 261/2004 and Section 4.2 of the 2024 Guidelines.

Your easyJet flight from Gatwick to Glasgow is cancelled at 21:00, and the new one leaves at 07:00. The airline owes you a hotel, transport, dinner and breakfast. If the cause was within its control, it may also owe £220 compensation.

After Brexit the UK kept its own version of Regulation 261/2004. It gives UK passengers the same care, refund and rerouting rights as before. Only the currency of compensation changed, to £220, £350 and £520.

The UK and EU rules run side by side. A flight from Manchester to Malaga falls under UK261. A flight from Malaga to Manchester falls under EU261, because it leaves an EU airport.

The UK Civil Aviation Authority oversees these rights. If the airline will not pay your costs, write to it first with receipts, and escalate if it still refuses. Court claims can run for 6 years in England and Wales, and for 5 in Scotland.

Your bag misses the rebooked flight and turns up three days later. You spend €70 on essentials in the meantime. File a report at the airport, then send a written claim with receipts. You must send it within 21 days of the day the bag reached you.

Two different laws can apply after a disrupted trip. EU261 covers meals, hotels and transport during the flight disruption. Articles 17 and 19 of the Montreal Convention 1999 cover checked bags that arrive late, get lost or get damaged.

For a delayed bag, the airline may repay what you reasonably needed to buy before it returned. Toiletries, underwear and a change of clothes fit that test, but a new wardrobe does not. Some airlines repay only part of the price of items you will keep.

Article 22 caps liability in Special Drawing Rights, and the airline can raise defences. Keep every receipt and the property irregularity report.

Baggage claims run on much shorter clocks than flight compensation. Article 31 of the Montreal Convention 1999 sets the notice periods, and the written complaint is the key step. Without it in time, the airline may refuse the claim even if the facts are clear.

Your bag arrives on 3 March after a cancellation and rebooking. You have until 24 March to send the written claim for the essentials you bought. If the airline refuses, Article 35 gives you two years to start a court claim.

The 21 days start when the bag reaches you, not when the flight landed. The 7 days for damage start when you receive the damaged bag. Use email or the airline's online form, so you have a dated record.

Keep the airport report, the bag tag and your receipts with the claim.

A cancellation and a lost bag are two separate problems with two separate claims. EU261 deals with the flight: care, rerouting, refunds and fixed compensation. Articles 17 and 22 of the Montreal Convention 1999 deal with the bag.

The airline cancels your flight from Vienna to London and rebooks you the next day. Your bag never arrives. Under EU261 you can claim care costs and possibly €250 compensation. Separately, you claim the bag's contents under the Montreal Convention.

For the bag, show what it held and what it was worth. Receipts, photos and bank records all help. The airline can raise defences, and its liability has a cap unless you made a special declaration of value at check-in.

Report the missing bag at the airport and get a reference. Then claim in writing from the airline. Under Article 35, court action must start within two years.