Short answer
Under Regulation 261/2004, an operating airline normally owes fixed compensation when it cancels a covered flight without sufficiently early notice, or when a passenger reaches the final destination at least three hours late. The amount is €250, €400 or €600 according to distance.
Compensation is not payable if the airline proves that an extraordinary circumstance caused the disruption and could not have been avoided with all reasonable measures. Courts ask whether the event was outside normal airline activity and actual control. Ordinary technical defects usually fail; a lightning strike or external airport disruption can pass. The airline must still prove causation and a proportionate response.
Refund, rerouting and care are separate rights. Extraordinary circumstances can defeat fixed compensation but do not remove the airline's duties to offer reimbursement or rerouting and provide meals, communications, and necessary accommodation.
Passengers should therefore assess compensation, alternative transport and out-of-pocket care expenses as distinct claims.
Which flights and passengers are covered?
applies to passengers departing from an airport in EU territory. It also covers a flight arriving there from a non-EU country when the operating airline is an EU carrier, unless the passenger received benefits or compensation and assistance in that third country.
The passenger ordinarily needs a confirmed reservation and timely check-in. Those requirements do not defeat cancellation claims. Frequent-flyer reward passengers are covered; free or private staff-fare travel is not. Duties fall on the operating air carrier.
For a single reservation with connections, delay compensation is assessed at the final destination. In Folkerts, C-11/11, the Court held that a passenger can qualify after arriving three hours late at the final destination even if the first flight's departure delay was below the Article 6 assistance threshold.
When cancellation triggers compensation
For cancellation, Article 5 directs the passenger to the Article 7 fixed compensation unless one of three notice-and-rerouting exceptions applies:
- notice at least 14 days before scheduled departure;
- notice 7–14 days before, with rerouting leaving no more than two hours early and arriving less than four hours late; or
- notice under 7 days before, with rerouting leaving no more than one hour early and arriving less than two hours late.
The airline bears the burden of proving whether and when it informed the passenger. If no exception applies, distance-based compensation is due unless Article 5(3) is established:
An operating air carrier shall not be obliged to pay compensation in accordance with Article 7, if it can prove that the cancellation is caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. —
A flight remains delayed rather than cancelled where it operates in accordance with the carrier's original planning, even after a long wait. The classification matters to some immediate rights, but not to the three-hour compensation principle.
Long arrival delay is treated like cancellation for compensation
The Regulation's text expressly gives care at specified departure-delay thresholds. The Court supplied the fixed-compensation rule for long arrival delay in Sturgeon:
[P]assengers whose flights are delayed may be treated, for the purposes of the application of the right to compensation, as passengers whose flights are cancelled ... where they reach their final destination three hours or more after the arrival time originally scheduled by the air carrier. —
The three hours are measured at the final destination, normally when at least one aircraft door opens and passengers are permitted to leave. A missed connection on one booking is assessed by ultimate arrival, not by examining each leg in isolation. The extraordinary-circumstances defence applies to long delay as it does to cancellation.
How much is the fixed compensation?
Article 7 sets:
- €250 for flights of 1,500 km or less;
- €400 for intra-EU flights over 1,500 km and other flights between 1,500 and 3,500 km; and
- €600 for other flights over 3,500 km.
Distance is measured to the final destination affected by the disruption. Where rerouting limits arrival delay to no more than two, three or four hours respectively for those bands, the airline may reduce compensation by 50%. For a long-delay claim on a non-EU flight over 3,500 km, case law likewise permits the 50% reduction where arrival delay is under four hours.
What counts as an extraordinary circumstance?
The airline must establish two cumulative features. Wallentin-Hermann states the controlling test:
[A] technical problem in an aircraft ... is not covered by the concept of ‘extraordinary circumstances’ ... unless that problem stems from events which, by their nature or origin, are not inherent in the normal exercise of the activity of the air carrier concerned and are beyond its actual control. —
Thus an unexpected component failure is ordinarily inherent in operating aircraft and within the carrier's control. A hidden design defect affecting an aircraft type is different: in C-411/23, prior manufacturer disclosure did not make the defect inherent or controllable. Sabotage and terrorism may likewise be external.
Severe weather, air-traffic-management decisions, airport closure, security risks and some external strikes may qualify. A lightning strike requiring mandatory safety inspections was extraordinary in Austrian Airlines, C-399/24. A shortage of airport-operator staff loading baggage may also qualify where the airline had no effective control over the operator: C-405/23. By contrast, an internal labour event arising from the carrier's workforce and management choices may remain inherent and controllable. The carrier must connect the event to the specific disruption.
“Reasonable measures” is a demanding second test
Showing an external event is not enough. The carrier must show that it deployed the staff, equipment and financial resources reasonably available and still could not avoid the disruption without intolerable sacrifice in light of its undertaking's capacities. The assessment is individual, not satisfied by saying that standard minimum procedures were followed.
Measures may include preventive planning, obtaining substitute aircraft or crew, limiting knock-on delay and actively searching for rerouting. For a known hidden engine defect, C-411/23 confirms that a backup fleet may be required where technically and economically feasible in light of the carrier's capacities. Where baggage loading is delayed by an airport operator, C-405/23 requires consideration of another provider if one could act in time.
The carrier should therefore prove the timeline: when the event became known, available aircraft and crews, seats searched across carriers, operational constraints, alternatives rejected, and their cost and feasibility. A generic certificate that “weather” or “technical reasons” caused disruption does not establish both limbs.
Care, refund and rerouting survive extraordinary circumstances
At departure delays of at least two hours for flights up to 1,500 km, three hours for the middle distance bands, and four hours for longer flights, Article 9 requires meals and refreshments proportionate to the wait and two communications. Where an overnight stay becomes necessary, hotel accommodation and transport between airport and hotel are due. At five hours, the passenger may choose reimbursement and, where relevant, a return flight to the original departure point.
For cancellation, the passenger chooses reimbursement, rerouting at the earliest opportunity under comparable conditions, or rerouting at a convenient later date subject to seats. Care continues while awaiting earliest rerouting.
The volcanic-ash judgment McDonagh confirms the separation:
[C]ircumstances such as the closure of part of European airspace as a result of the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano constitute ‘extraordinary circumstances’ ... which do not release air carriers from their obligation ... to provide care. —
If the airline fails to provide care, passengers should retain itemised receipts. Reimbursement is limited to amounts necessary, appropriate and reasonable in the circumstances; it is not the same as Article 7 fixed compensation.
Claims, proof and time limits
A claim should include the booking, actual arrival time, cancellation notice, communications and receipts. Ask the operating carrier to identify the event, causal chain and alternatives considered. National enforcement bodies, alternative dispute resolution and courts may be available.
Regulation 261 sets no uniform limitation period for court claims; national law supplies it, subject to EU effectiveness and equivalence. Jurisdiction and procedure need country-specific checking.
Conclusion
The practical sequence is: confirm territorial and booking coverage; classify cancellation or measure arrival delay at the final destination; calculate the distance band; test cancellation notice and rerouting; then require the airline to prove both extraordinary circumstances and all reasonable measures. Whatever the compensation result, assess refund, rerouting and care separately. “Extraordinary circumstances” is not a general disruption waiver—it is a strict, evidence-dependent defence to fixed compensation.
Sources
This article provides general legal information, not advice for a specific matter. Laws, facts and procedural deadlines may change the result. Follow the linked primary sources and obtain local advice before acting.