Your EU Flight Was Delayed? You Could Be Owed up to €600 a Person

Here's a number most American travelers have never heard: €600 per person. That's the maximum compensation EU law can force an airline to pay you if your flight reaches its destination more than three hours late — and it applies to you if your flight was on European soil, to or from Europe, or on a European carrier.

The legal basis is EU Regulation 261/2004, and it covers far more than people expect. It isn't a consumer-protection scheme that only protects Europeans. If you fly from New York to Paris with Air France, Lufthansa or another EU carrier and arrive at Charles de Gaulle with a four-hour delay, you're owed up to €600. If you fly home from an EU airport — from Paris to Los Angeles, say, on any airline — the same protection applies. Families can multiply that figure across every member with a ticket.

How much you're entitled to

The amount scales with the geographic distance of the flight, not with what you paid:

• €250 for flights up to 1,500 km (short-haul within Europe)
• €400 for flights of 1,500–3,500 km (mid-haul)
• €600 for flights over 3,500 km (long-haul, including transatlantic)

That's per passenger, in cash, on top of any food, drink, rebooking or refund the airline provides under the same regulation. The delay is measured by when you actually land, not when you take off. A flight that sits on the apron for two hours before takeoff counts fully toward the three-hour threshold, which trips up more airlines than you'd think.

What the airline will tell you instead

What the airline is required to do at the airport is keep you fed, hydrated and informed. What it is not required to do — and will almost never volunteer — is mention that you have a claim for up to €600 sitting on the table. Its gate agents are under instructions to hand you a meal voucher, offer a hotel, and say nothing that could be construed as admitting the delay was their fault.

When you file on your own, the response is often a form letter claiming "extraordinary circumstances." Under the regulation, extraordinary circumstances means things like severe weather that closed the airport, a strike by air traffic control, or political unrest. It does not mean a crew member calling in sick, an aircraft that wasn't maintained on time, or "operational issues." Yet these are the phrases that show up in rejection letters, because they know a lot of US passengers won't chase it across the Atlantic.

How claiming actually works from the US

The claims process is handled in writing, entirely by email and post, so being American doesn't put you at a disadvantage — but it does make the process feel further away, and airlines exploit that feeling. They stall, they ask for more documents, they let months slip past while hoping you lose interest.

This is precisely why a specialist service is worth considering. We act as your representative, in the carrier's own jurisdiction, on your behalf. We gather the flight records, send the formal claim, chase every deadline, and escalate to enforcement when the airline drags its feet. Family can fly home, forget the whole thing, and still end up with money in the bank — but only if the claim is filed and fought.

How far back can you go?

Limitation periods vary by country and route, which is exactly why you shouldn't assume your chance has passed. In many European jurisdictions you can claim for several years back. The rule of thumb from our side is simple: if it happened within the last few years and you have (or can retrieve) your flight details, it's worth a free check.

Put your flight number in, tell us the date, and we'll tell you honestly whether there's a claim. If there is, we handle the airline for you — and you don't pay a thing unless the money actually lands.