On this page 16
- Which airline actually operated your flight
- The amounts, and the long-haul reduction
- Claiming
- German limitation: three years, but not from the date you think
- Strikes, which are Lufthansa's defining disruption
- Other refusals, and whether they hold
- Connections through Frankfurt and Munich
- Downgrades
- Care and assistance
- Escalating
- Codeshares: the trap on transatlantic routes
- Eurowings, Discover and the low-cost arms
- Miles, vouchers and what they are really worth
- Business travel and who the claim belongs to
- What to do at the airport
- If you are claiming for several flights at once
Lufthansa holds a German operating licence, which puts it squarely inside EU261 on every route it flies, inbound and outbound. The law is favourable. What is less favourable is the limitation period that applies if the claim ends up in German hands, and the fact that "Lufthansa" on your booking may be one of several group airlines with different handling.
The short version
Covered leaving the EU and arriving into it from anywhere, at €250–€600 — but halved to €300 on long-haul if you arrived between three and four hours late. Watch the German limitation rule: three years, running to the end of the calendar year in which the claim arose.
Which airline actually operated your flight
The Lufthansa Group includes several separate operating carriers, among them Lufthansa itself, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Swiss, Eurowings and ITA Airways. They hold licences in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy respectively.
For scope purposes this changes nothing useful: all of them are EU or EEA licensed, or in Swiss's case covered through Switzerland's air transport agreement with the EU, so inbound flights are covered whichever flew you. What it changes is who you write to and whose national enforcement body handles an escalation. A flight sold under an LH number but operated by Austrian is an Austrian Airlines claim, handled by Austrian, escalated in Austria.
Your boarding pass carries an "operated by" line. That is the legal defendant. Addressing the claim to the wrong group company is not fatal, but it adds weeks.
The amounts, and the long-haul reduction
| Distance to final destination | Arrived 3–4h late | Arrived 4h+ late |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 1,500 km | €250 | €250 |
| Over 1,500 km within the EU | €400 | €400 |
| 1,500–3,500 km | €400 | €400 |
| Over 3,500 km | €300 | €600 |
Lufthansa's long-haul network means that bottom row carries most of its claim value, and the reduction in the left-hand column is real law that a great many online checkers omit. Article 7(2) halves the award where you arrived within four hours on a journey over 3,500 km. Frankfurt to Singapore arriving three hours forty minutes late is €300. The same flight arriving four hours ten minutes late is €600. The twenty minutes between those two outcomes is worth €300 a head.
Which makes the doors-open time decisive. Arrival in the regulation means when passengers can leave the aircraft, not touchdown, and at a hub like Frankfurt the taxi and stand wait regularly spans that line.
Claiming
Lufthansa runs an online claim form and it is the right channel — it creates a case reference and routes to the right team. You need the booking reference, the operating flight number, scheduled and actual arrival at your final destination, and every passenger's name.
Specify the claim. State the arrival gap, the great-circle distance, which band that puts you in, whether the four-hour threshold was crossed, the per-passenger figure and the total. A claim framed like that makes an underpayment at the €300 tier obvious to both sides; a vague claim invites one.
Ask explicitly for bank transfer. Lufthansa will sometimes offer travel vouchers or miles. Compensation is payable in money, and vouchers carry expiry dates and route restrictions that cash does not.
German limitation: three years, but not from the date you think
This is the single most important practical difference between claiming from Lufthansa and claiming from a British or Irish airline, and it catches people out constantly.
German limitation for these claims runs three years, but the clock starts at the end of the calendar year in which the claim arose rather than on the date of the flight. A flight disrupted in January 2024 and one disrupted in December 2024 both have their period measured from 31 December 2024 — so the January passenger effectively gets almost four years and the December passenger gets three. Either way, what matters is 31 December.
Compare six years in England and Wales. If your journey touched the UK you may have a choice of jurisdiction, and that choice can be worth years. If it did not, assume the German rule and act accordingly. Deadlines by country sets out the others.
If your claim is approaching a year-end
Correspondence does not stop the clock. Neither does a regulator holding your file. Only issuing a court claim reliably does. A claim from three Decembers ago that is still being argued about is a claim about to expire.
Strikes, which are Lufthansa's defining disruption
Lufthansa has had repeated industrial action across pilots, cabin crew and ground staff, and strikes dominate its claim refusals. The distinction that decides these is whose strike it was.
Lufthansa's own staff. Not an extraordinary circumstance. The Court of Justice has treated industrial action by a carrier's own workforce as part of the normal exercise of its business. If your flight was cancelled because Lufthansa pilots or cabin crew walked out, you have a claim, whatever the refusal letter says.
Air traffic control strikes. Outside the airline's control, and a genuine defence.
Airport ground handling strikes by a third-party contractor. The contested middle. Where the striking workers are employed by an airport operator or an independent handling company rather than the airline, the airline has a stronger argument — but it still has to show it took reasonable measures. Which strikes count goes through the distinctions.
Other refusals, and whether they hold
Technical faults. Not extraordinary. Problems revealed in maintenance or normal operation are inherent in operating aircraft. Press it.
Weather. Generally genuine, but ask whether neighbouring departures operated.
Knock-on from an earlier rotation. Only helps where the original cause was extraordinary and recovery was not reasonably possible. Lufthansa operates a large fleet from major hubs with spare aircraft and standby crews, which makes the "no reasonable measures available" argument harder for it than for a small operator.
Connections through Frankfurt and Munich
Most of Lufthansa's claim value comes from connecting itineraries, and the regulation handles them in the passenger's favour provided it was one booking. Your delay is measured by arrival at the final destination, and the distance band is measured end to end from original departure to final destination.
So a short delay out of Manchester that costs you a Frankfurt connection to Tokyo, putting you in a day late, is a long-haul claim at the full €600 — not a short-haul claim about the leg that actually went wrong. Book those legs separately, though, and you have two journeys and no claim at all. Missed connections.
Downgrades
If you were booked in Business or First and flown in a lower cabin, that is not a delay claim and the Article 7 bands do not apply. It is a separate right to reimbursement of a proportion of the ticket price for the affected flight, which on a long-haul premium fare is usually far more than any delay compensation. Lufthansa may offer miles instead; work out the statutory figure first. How downgrades are calculated.
Care and assistance
Meals proportionate to the wait, and a hotel with transport if you are kept overnight. Owed whether or not compensation is. During mass disruption at Frankfurt or Munich the hotel inventory runs out, and you will be told to book your own and claim it back — do that, keep it modest, keep every receipt, and submit it separately from the compensation claim. What gets reimbursed.
Escalating
The national enforcement body for your departure country is the formal route — the Luftfahrt-Bundesamt for German departures, and the equivalent body elsewhere. It is free and slow.
Germany also has a well-established out-of-court arbitration route for air passenger disputes, which is free to passengers and widely used; it is usually the better first escalation for a German departure. For a clear claim where you would rather not wait, court is faster, and Lufthansa has substantial assets everywhere it flies so enforcement is not a concern.
Codeshares: the trap on transatlantic routes
Lufthansa codeshares heavily with United and other partners. A flight carrying an LH number but operated by United out of a US airport is a United flight for these purposes — and because it departs the United States on a non-EU carrier, no European regime covers it at all. The reverse is also true and more cheerful: a United-numbered flight actually operated by Lufthansa into Europe is covered.
The "operated by" line on the boarding pass is the whole question. Codeshares and who pays.
Eurowings, Discover and the low-cost arms
Lufthansa moved a large amount of short-haul and leisure flying into lower-cost subsidiaries, and passengers often book what they think is a Lufthansa flight and travel on one of them. Eurowings holds a German licence; the group's leisure long-haul operation likewise flies under its own certificate. Both are EU carriers, so coverage is unaffected.
What differs is service recovery, and it differs in ways that affect the size of your claim rather than its existence. A mainline Lufthansa disruption at Frankfurt can usually be recovered the same day because there are multiple frequencies, spare aircraft and partner airlines to re-route onto. A Eurowings disruption on a route flown three times a week has none of that, so the delay you end up claiming for is frequently much longer — which pushes you past the four-hour long-haul threshold and into the full amount rather than the halved one.
It also means the "no reasonable measures were available" argument is more credible from the smaller operation than from mainline. That does not make it correct, but expect it to be made with more conviction, and ask specifically what alternatives were considered.
Miles, vouchers and what they are really worth
Lufthansa will sometimes respond to a valid claim with an offer of Miles & More miles or a travel voucher rather than the Article 7 amount in cash. The headline figure is usually chosen to look larger than the statutory sum.
Convert before you compare. Airline miles have a realistic redemption value well below the notional rates implied in these offers, and that value is only realisable if you can find award availability on a route you actually want, within any expiry window, often with cash surcharges on top. A voucher is worse again: it is restricted to the issuing group, expires, and cannot be used to buy a competitor's seat at the moment you most need one.
Compensation is payable in money. If you would genuinely rather have the miles, take them with your eyes open — but check first whether accepting is framed as full and final settlement, because that wording closes off the difference if you later work out the cash was worth more.
Business travel and who the claim belongs to
If your employer bought the ticket, the compensation still belongs to the passenger. The entitlement under Article 7 attaches to the person who was carried, not to whoever paid. Employers sometimes assume otherwise, and some corporate travel policies are written as though the company has a claim; as a matter of the regulation, it does not.
What an employer can legitimately reclaim is its own out-of-pocket expense — a wasted hotel night it paid for, a replacement ticket it bought. Those are different money from your compensation. Claim yours, name yourself as the passenger, and keep the two separate.
What to do at the airport
Five minutes of collection while you are standing there saves weeks of argument later. Screenshot the departure board, the app notification, and whatever reason is being given at the time — the reason announced on the day and the reason in the eventual refusal letter are frequently different, and that inconsistency is useful evidence. Ask at the desk for meals and, if overnight, for a hotel, and note who you asked. Record the time the doors opened at the far end.
If you are claiming for several flights at once
Each disrupted flight is a separate entitlement for each passenger, with no annual cap and no penalty for claiming often. Submit them as separate claims with separate references rather than one combined letter, because a single claim covering four flights tends to be answered on its weakest leg and closed.
Work out your own figure
Four regimes checked at once, no sign-up, and it shows you the article the number comes from.