A flight delay happens to every traveller, but most people do not know that the airline has concrete obligations when it does. A person waits six hours at the airport, buys food with their own money, then goes home and forgets the matter. Yet in some cases those costs are refunded, and separate compensation is paid on top. Below I have written what you can claim in which case and how to do it.
What the airline has to pay in a flight delay
The first layer is called care and it applies regardless of the reason. Once the wait passes a certain number of hours the airline has to give you drinking water and food, and if it runs into the night a hotel and transport to and from the airport are included too. This is the same whether the cause is bad weather or a technical fault.
In practice nobody comes up and offers it to you. You have to go to the check-in desk and ask for a meal voucher, and if they do not give one, you keep the receipt and claim later. Corresponding with the airline during a delay needs internet, and an eSIM that works abroad proves itself at that moment. Do not throw the receipts away; they are the main evidence for the claim.
In which cases compensation is given
Compensation is a separate thing and is not given for every delay. The European Union’s rule is the most widely recognised: it covers all flights departing from an airport in the union’s territory, and among those arriving in the union from outside, only the flights of European airlines. If the delay on arrival at the destination exceeds three hours, the amount is calculated by distance.
| Up to 1500 km | 250 euros |
| Over 1500 km within the union | 400 euros |
| 1500–3500 km on other flights | 400 euros |
| Over 3500 km | 600 euros |
There is one important exception: no compensation is paid in extraordinary circumstances. That includes strong wind and fog, a strike by air traffic controllers, the closure of the airport and security incidents. A fault in the aircraft itself, though, is usually not considered extraordinary, because technical maintenance is the company’s own business. Turkey has a similar rule of its own, so for those flying via Istanbul the matter is not entirely hopeless.
Read more: A transit flight: how much time to leave, where the baggage goes and whether you need a visa
One ticket or two separate tickets
This is the most expensive side of a delay and most people learn it afterwards. If both flights are inside one ticket and the first is delayed so you miss the second, the airline has to move you to the next flight free of charge. With two separately bought tickets there is no such obligation: the second ticket is simply lost and you buy a new one out of your own pocket.
So separate tickets that look cheap actually carry a hidden risk. If you have to buy separate tickets, leave at least three or four hours between them. When building the route, pay no less attention to the time gap between flights than to the price.
How to write a claim about a flight delay
Before you leave the airport, keep three things: the boarding pass, written confirmation of the delay and all the receipts. Photographing the board showing the delay helps too, because the schedule is later updated and no trace remains.
Send the claim through the form on the airline’s own site, so that the email correspondence remains. The answer comes late and the first answer is often a refusal; that is normal, write a second time. If the flight is cancelled outright and the next one is the following day, going overland is sometimes faster, and looking at train and bus options takes a few minutes. The official explanation of passenger rights is given on the European Union’s passenger rights page.
In brief
When a delay happens, first ask for the care, then collect the documents, and settle the compensation question calmly after you get home. Leave a wide gap between separate tickets, keep the receipts, do not treat the first refusal as the final answer. To plan the route and the visa process together, fill in the application form.
Note: compensation rules vary by the route of the flight and the country the airline is registered in, so check the ticket’s terms in your particular case.
