EC 261/2004 Explained: Coverage, Compensation, and How to Claim

Regulation EC 261/2004 is the European Union law that gives air passengers the right to cash compensation of €250 to €600, plus meals, hotel accommodation, and a choice between a refund and re-routing, when a covered flight is cancelled, delayed by three hours or more at arrival, or overbooked.¹ It has been in force since 17 February 2005 and applies to every airline flying out of an EU airport, plus EU-licensed carriers flying into the EU from elsewhere.

Which Flights Are Covered

Two situations bring you inside the regulation. Any flight departing from an airport in an EU member state is covered no matter which airline operates it, so a carrier based in Asia leaving Paris is treated the same as a European flag carrier. A flight arriving in the EU from a non-EU country is covered only when the operating airline holds an EU operating licence.¹

The EU’s outermost regions count as EU territory here, so the Canary Islands, Azores, Madeira, Martinique, and Réunion are all in. Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland are covered through separate agreements.² You cannot claim under EC 261 if you already received compensation for the same disruption under the laws of a non-EU country.

Code-share flights are a common trap. When two airlines sell the same flight under different flight numbers, it’s the operating carrier, not the airline that sold you the ticket, that owes you compensation.³ So if you booked with a European airline but a non-EU carrier is actually running the flight from outside the EU, you may fall outside the regulation. Check the operating carrier on your booking confirmation.

Flights to and from the United Kingdom no longer come under EC 261. The UK now runs its own near-identical version, UK261, with compensation paid in sterling: £220 short-haul, £350 medium-haul, £520 long-haul.⁴

What the Airline Owes You Immediately

Before any compensation question, the airline has an unconditional duty of care once your delay crosses a distance-based threshold, measured from the scheduled departure time:¹

2 hours or more on flights of 1,500 km or less
3 hours or more on flights within the EU over 1,500 km, and other flights between 1,500 and 3,500 km
4 hours or more on all other flights

Once the threshold is met, the airline must provide meals and refreshments proportionate to the wait, plus two free phone calls or emails.⁵ If the replacement departure is the next day, hotel and airport transfers are on the airline too. This applies equally to cancellations and denied boarding, and it applies regardless of the cause. A blizzard doesn’t excuse an airline from feeding you.

If the airline fails to arrange care and you pay yourself, save every receipt and claim reimbursement afterward. Expenses must be necessary, reasonable, and appropriate. Standard airport hotels and normal meals will be covered; luxury suites and fine dining probably won’t.⁶

A separate right activates when a delay reaches five hours: you can abandon the trip and demand a full refund of the ticket price for any unflown legs, paid within seven days. If you’ve already flown part of a connecting itinerary and the rest no longer serves any purpose, you can also ask for a return flight to your original departure point.¹

How Much Compensation You Can Claim

Compensation is a flat cash amount set by flight distance:¹

€250 for flights of 1,500 km or less
€400 for flights within the EU over 1,500 km, and other flights between 1,500 and 3,500 km
€600 for all other flights over 3,500 km

Distance is measured to your final destination, not just the leg that went wrong. Every passenger on the booking claims individually, children with their own paid seats included.

The airline can halve the amount when it re-routes you and gets you to your destination within a limited delay window: two hours for short-haul, three hours for medium-haul, four hours for long-haul.¹ A cancelled short-haul flight where the airline rebooks you and you land only 90 minutes late may only trigger €125 instead of the full €250.⁶

Delays of Three Hours or More

The written regulation didn’t originally provide cash compensation for delayed flights, only cancelled and overbooked ones. The European Court of Justice changed that in 2009 in the joined cases of Sturgeon v Condor and Böck v Air France, holding that passengers who arrive at their final destination three or more hours late are entitled to the same compensation as passengers whose flights were cancelled.⁷ The three-hour clock runs to the moment the aircraft doors open at the gate, not to touchdown.

That ruling is the basis for most delay claims filed in Europe today. The only way an airline avoids paying is by proving extraordinary circumstances that could not have been avoided even with all reasonable measures, and the burden sits on the airline.

When Your Flight Is Cancelled

Cancellation triggers an immediate choice among three options:¹

A full refund of the ticket price for unflown legs, paid within seven days, plus a return flight to your starting point if the rest of the journey no longer makes sense
Re-routing at the earliest opportunity under comparable conditions
Re-routing on a later date of your choice, subject to seat availability

If re-routing sends you to an alternative airport that serves the same city or region, the airline pays your transport between airports.⁵

Whether cash compensation is owed on top of the choice above depends on how far in advance the airline told you:¹

14 or more days before departure: no compensation owed
Between 7 and 14 days: no compensation if the re-routing departs no more than 2 hours early and arrives less than 4 hours late
Less than 7 days: no compensation only if re-routing departs no more than 1 hour early and arrives less than 2 hours late

Outside those windows, the standard €250, €400, or €600 is due unless the airline proves extraordinary circumstances. The refund-or-reroute choice and the duty of care apply either way.

Being Bumped from an Overbooked Flight

Denied boarding is where the regulation bites hardest. The airline must first ask for volunteers to give up their seats in exchange for negotiated benefits.¹ Volunteers also keep the refund-or-reroute choice on top of whatever the airline offers.

If not enough people volunteer and you’re bumped involuntarily, you are owed the full compensation at the €250/€400/€600 rate plus the refund-or-reroute choice, immediately. There is no extraordinary-circumstances defence for overbooking. The only carve-outs are legitimate refusals for health, safety, or inadequate travel documents.

If You Were Downgraded

Being moved from a higher class of service to a lower one entitles you to a partial refund of your ticket price, calculated by distance:⁶

30% on flights of 1,500 km or less
50% on flights within the EU over 1,500 km, and other flights between 1,500 and 3,500 km
75% on all remaining flights, including routes between the EU and French overseas departments

Payment is due within seven days. The refund applies only to the leg where the downgrade actually happened, not the whole ticket. An upgrade is different: the airline cannot bill you extra for one.

Missed Connections on One Ticket

When a delay on one leg makes you miss a connection and you reach your final destination more than three hours late, you can claim compensation, provided the whole journey was on a single reservation.⁶ The protection reaches connections at non-EU airports as long as the journey started at an EU airport, so Amsterdam to Istanbul to Dubai on one booking is covered.

Two limits matter. You lose the claim if the missed connection was caused by a security-checkpoint delay rather than the airline, and you lose it if you didn’t respect the connecting flight’s boarding time. Separately booked legs are not covered: if you stitched together two independent tickets, the first airline owes you nothing for the second flight.

What Counts as Extraordinary Circumstances

Most compensation disputes turn on this defence. The airline can escape paying (though never the duty of care) only by proving both that the disruption was caused by extraordinary circumstances beyond its control and that all reasonable measures were taken.

Events that European courts have generally treated as extraordinary include severe weather that makes flying genuinely unsafe, air traffic control restrictions or ATC strikes, security threats, airport closures, political instability, and bird strikes.

The bigger category is what does not count. Technical problems are the most litigated. In Wallentin-Hermann v Alitalia, the Court of Justice held that mechanical failures found during maintenance, or caused by inadequate maintenance, are inherent in running an airline and are not extraordinary.⁸ In van der Lans v KLM the court extended that to unexpected component failures and hidden manufacturing defects, treating them as intrinsically linked to operating a complex aircraft.⁹ The narrow exception is a fleet-wide safety defect identified by the manufacturer or a competent authority.

Strikes by the airline’s own staff are also not extraordinary. The Grand Chamber ruled in Airhelp v SAS that a strike by an airline’s own employees over pay or conditions is an internal matter the carrier can manage through labour negotiations, unlike external strikes by air traffic controllers or airport staff.¹⁰ The strike being lawful, or the demands looking unreasonable, does not change the outcome. If the airline’s pilots or cabin crew walked out, the airline pays.

How to Claim

Start with the airline directly, using its complaint form or online EC 261 portal. Include your booking reference, flight number, the date and nature of the disruption, and receipts for any expenses. Give the airline two months to respond.⁶

If it rejects the claim, offers less than you’re owed, or goes silent, escalate to the National Enforcement Body in the country where the disruption happened. Each member state designates one to handle these complaints.¹¹

Don’t Wait Too Long

The regulation itself sets no uniform deadline. Each member state applies its own limitation period, and they vary widely: one year in Belgium and Poland, two in the Netherlands and Italy, three in Germany and Denmark, five in France and Spain, six in Ireland. When in doubt, use the country where the disruption occurred rather than your home country. The safest approach is to file within a year of the flight no matter where it happened, because missing the deadline is the easiest way to lose an otherwise valid claim.

1
EUR-Lex. Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council
2
ENAC. Passengers Rights in Case of Denied Boarding, Cancellation or Long Delay
3
Your Europe. FAQs – Air Passenger Rights
4
HFW. UK261 Passenger Rights After the Brexit Transition Period
5
Legislation.gov.uk. Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council
6
Your Europe. Air Passenger Rights
7
EUR-Lex. Joined Cases C-402/07 and C-432/07
8
IFTTA. ECJ Case C-549/07 Wallentin-Hermann v Alitalia
9
CJEU. Press Release on Case C-257/14 van der Lans v KLM
10
Court of Justice of the European Union. Judgment of the Court (Grand Chamber) in Case C-28/20 Airhelp v SAS
11
European Commission. National Enforcement Bodies (NEB)