Traveller rights

Do the EU rules apply to you?

• You leave from an EU airport, with any airline.
• You fly into the EU from outside, on a flight operated by an EU airline.
• The Canary Islands, the Azores, Madeira and the other outermost regions count as the EU, and the rules also cover flights to or from Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.
• You need a confirmed booking and to check in at the time you were given or, if you weren’t given one, 45 minutes before departure.
• They don’t apply if you travel free or on a reduced fare that isn’t available to the public.
• The airline operating the flight is responsible, even if another one sold you the ticket.

What you can be owed

Care while you wait

Meals and drinks in proportion to the wait, two calls or emails and, if you have to stay overnight, a hotel and transfers. If you pay for it yourself, keep the receipts: they must refund it if it was necessary and reasonable.

Refund or alternative flight

A refund within 7 days. An alternative flight as soon as possible, or on a date you choose if there are seats. You pick one option, once.

Compensation

€250 for flights of up to 1,500 km; €400 for flights within the EU over 1,500 km and for other flights of 1,500 to 3,500 km; €600 for the rest. It can be halved if you’re taken to your destination on an alternative flight arriving within 2, 3 or 4 hours, depending on the distance. It’s paid in money; in vouchers only if you agree in writing.

When there’s no compensation

If the airline proves there were extraordinary circumstances that couldn’t be avoided —weather, security risks, air traffic control decisions, political instability— it doesn’t pay compensation, but it still owes you care and a refund or an alternative flight. Most technical problems and strikes by the airline’s own staff don’t count as extraordinary.

How to claim, step by step

1. Always claim from the airline first, in writing, using its own complaint form. Keep the ticket, boarding passes, emails and receipts.
2. If you get no reply within two months, or the reply doesn’t satisfy you, complain to the national authority of the country where it happened. It gives you a non-binding opinion on how to take your claim further.
3. If your flight left from Spain, or arrived in Spain from outside the EU with an EU airline, that authority is AESA. It accepts your claim after 1 month without a reply, up to 1 year after you claimed from the airline. It’s free, it decides within 90 days of having all the documents, and its decision binds the airline but not you.
4. If you live in the EU you can also use an alternative dispute resolution body, and you can always go to court, including through the European Small Claims Procedure.

If you’d rather someone handled it for you

What the reform changes

The reform of the regulation was signed on 16 September 2026 and will apply 12 months after it’s published in the Official Journal of the EU. TripPlan hasn’t been able to confirm that date yet. Until then the 2004 text applies, and it’s what this page explains.

According to the European Commission, the 3 hours and the €250, €400 and €600 stay; airlines will have to tell you within 96 hours what your rights are and how to claim; and they won’t be able to refuse your return flight because you didn’t fly out.