How to claim flight compensation yourself (and keep all of it)
A claim company takes about a third of your money for sending one email. Here is that email, and what to do when the airline ignores it.
32 guides
Guides
Everything the claim companies would rather explain to you after they have taken their cut. Written to be read by someone who is angry at an airline and wants the money.
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The basics · 4 min
How to claim flight compensation yourself (and keep all of it)
A claim company takes about a third of your money for sending one email. Here is that email, and what to do when the airline ignores it.
The basics · 2 min
Extraordinary circumstances: which airline excuses actually work
One phrase decides most refused claims. Courts have been narrowing it for fifteen years, and airlines still quote it as though it covers everything.
Browse by what you need
Start here
Short orientation pieces: how a claim works, what the deadlines are, and whether to pay someone to do it.
7 guides
By airline
How each major carrier handles claims, what they refuse and what makes them pay.
6 guides
Why it was delayed
The cause decides whether you get paid. What counts as the airline’s fault, and what genuinely does not.
6 guides
What happened to you
Downgrades, diversions, overnight delays, missed connections and the borderline three-hour claim.
7 guides
Making the claim
The escalation ladder: the letter, the regulator, the ADR scheme and the small claims court.
4 guides
The money
Fees, tax, vouchers, insurance overlap and who actually ends up with your compensation.
2 guides
Everything
Extraordinary circumstances: which airline excuses actually work
One phrase decides most refused claims. Courts have been narrowing it for fifteen years, and airlines still quote it as though it covers everything.
Claim it yourself or use a claim company?
Claim firms are not a scam. They are an expensive insurance policy against your own inertia, and sometimes that is a fair trade.
How long you have to claim, country by country
The same delay can be claimable for six years or already expired, depending on which country’s courts apply.
Missed connections: when the whole journey counts
The rule people get wrong most often. Your 40-minute delay out of Manchester can be worth €600, and your 5-hour delay can be worth nothing.
The EU261 reform: what is changing and what still applies
There has been a lot of noise about EU261 being watered down. For a flight disrupted today, the rules have not changed.
Bumped off a flight: what you are owed, and the trap at the gate
Denied boarding is the best-paid disruption in passenger-rights law, and the easiest to accidentally sign away.
Claiming compensation from Ryanair
Ryanair is an Irish airline, which makes it one of the easier carriers to claim from on paper and one of the more stubborn in practice.
Claiming compensation from easyJet
easyJet is three airlines wearing one orange livery, and which of them operated your flight can decide whether you have a claim at all.
Claiming compensation from British Airways
BA is a UK airline, which makes it one of the most claimable carriers in the world on exactly the routes where most airlines owe you nothing.
Claiming compensation from Wizz Air
Wizz Air is fully covered by the regulations and among the least willing to apply them. Plan for escalation from the start.
Claiming compensation from Lufthansa
Lufthansa is an EU carrier covered in both directions, but German limitation law gives you years less than you would get in Britain — and the clock has an unusual shape.
Claiming compensation from Air Canada
Air Canada claims turn on a category of excuse that does not exist in European law, and on a deadline four or five years shorter than Britain’s.
Technical faults: the refusal that usually fails
If your refusal letter says "technical issue", "aircraft defect" or "operational reasons", you are probably owed the money. Here is why, and what to write back.
Weather delays: when "bad weather" is not a defence
Weather is the one refusal that is often honest. It is also the one airlines reach for when the real reason was something else entirely.
Strikes: whose walkout decides whether you get paid
Airlines lose this argument more often than any other and keep making it. The question is never whether there was a strike — it is who was striking.
Air traffic control delays: the defence that usually works
Of all the reasons airlines give, this is the one most likely to be true — and the one most convenient to apply to a whole day of unrelated problems.
Crew shortages and crew out of hours
If your flight was delayed because there was nobody to fly it, that is as close to a guaranteed claim as this area of law offers.
Bird strikes: extraordinary, but not a blank cheque
The strike itself is beyond the airline’s control. The eleven hours afterwards very often are not.
Downgraded to a lower cabin: what you get back
This is not a delay claim and the usual compensation bands do not apply. It is a different right, and on a premium long-haul fare it is worth considerably more.
Diverted to the wrong airport
The clock does not stop when the wheels touch down somewhere else. That single rule turns a lot of apparently short diversions into full claims.
Stuck overnight: meals, hotels and what gets reimbursed
This is the right that applies even when compensation does not, has no financial ceiling, and goes unclaimed more than any other.
Two hours fifty-five: the borderline claim
The difference between nothing and €600 is sometimes the twenty minutes between landing and the doors opening. Here is how to prove it.
Codeshares: who actually owes you the money
The two-letter code on your booking is marketing. The line that says "operated by" is the one with the legal consequences.
Package holidays: two sets of rights at once
If your flight was part of a package, you have two overlapping claims against two different parties. Most people make neither properly.
Delayed, damaged and lost baggage
Different law, different deadlines, different limits — and deadlines measured in days rather than years. This is the claim people most often leave too late.
The evidence that wins a claim
You do not need to prove the airline was at fault. You do need to prove you were there, and when you arrived.
When the airline simply does not reply
Passengers who spend six months exchanging letters are not more likely to be paid. They have simply spent six months.
Taking an airline to small claims court
The word "court" stops most people. The process is a web form, the fee comes back if you win, and a large share settle before anyone sees a judge.
The free routes: regulators and ADR schemes
There is a free, binding escalation route for most flights, and it is the reason handing a third of your claim to a company is usually poor value.
Travel insurance and statutory compensation
They are not alternatives. One is a fixed statutory entitlement, the other a contract you bought — and claiming the wrong one first can cost you money.
Cash, vouchers, miles and tax
The entitlement is money. Everything an airline offers instead is worth less than the number attached to it, and there is usually a reason it is being offered first.