Aer Lingus owes €250, €400 or €600 when you reach your final destination three or more hours late, when it cancels with under 14 days’ notice, or when it denies you boarding. It holds an Irish operating licence, so EU261 covers the flights it operates out of Europe and the flights it operates into Europe alike.
Article 7 itself names cancellation and denied boarding. The right to the same fixed sum after a three-hour arrival delay comes from the Court of Justice in Sturgeon (C-402/07 and C-432/07, 2009), upheld in Nelson (C-581/10 and C-629/10, 2012). The amounts and the halving rule are in the amounts table.
Which regime applies to your Aer Lingus flight
| Your flight | Regime |
|---|---|
| Departs an airport in the EU or EEA, or arrives in the EU from a third country on Aer Lingus | EU261 — euro amounts, enforcement body of the country you left |
| Departs a UK airport | UK261 — £220, £350 or £520, and the CAA route |
The Irish Aviation Authority is Ireland’s enforcement body, and it makes the inbound half of that table concrete: its own page uses an Aer Lingus flight from New York into Dublin as the example of a covered arrival, and an American Airlines flight as the example of one that is not, because Article 3(1)(b) only reaches inbound flights operated by a carrier licensed in the EU or EEA.
Dublin–Madrid is the €250 band, not €400
The band is great-circle distance to your final destination, and Aer Lingus has an unusual number of routes that land just under a threshold. From the airport coordinates this site ships:
| Route | Great-circle | Band |
|---|---|---|
| Dublin – Manchester | 264 km | €250 |
| Dublin – London Heathrow | 449 km | €250 |
| Dublin – Amsterdam | 750 km | €250 |
| Dublin – Madrid | 1,453 km | €250 |
| Dublin – Faro | 1,830 km | €400 |
| Dublin – Lanzarote | 2,788 km | €400 |
| Dublin – Boston | 4,804 km | €600 |
| Dublin – New York JFK | 5,103 km | €600 |
| Dublin – Los Angeles | 8,318 km | €600 |
Madrid is 47 km short of the 1,500 km line, so a five-hour delay on that route is €250 and an airline that offers you €250 is not short-changing you. Faro, 380 km further, doubles it. The measuring rule is in how flight distance is measured.
Aer Lingus Regional is a different defendant
Article 2(b) puts the obligation on the airline that operated the flight, whoever sold the ticket and whichever code is printed on it. The Court of Justice took that to its limit in Wirth and Others v Thomson Airways (C-532/17, 4 July 2018): a carrier that leases out an aircraft with its crew but does not bear operational responsibility is not the operating air carrier — even where the booking confirmation says the flight is operated by it. What counts is who fixed the itinerary and decided to perform the flight.
Aer Lingus Regional flights carry EI numbers but are flown by a separate company, and Emerald Airlines publishes Aer Lingus Regional route news as its own and lists franchise flying among its services. We could not open a statement from either airline naming the licence holder for a given Regional flight — aerlingus.com answers automated checks with a bot-detection page — so we do not state it as a fact here. Read the “operated by” line on your booking confirmation and address the claim to that company. Sending it to the wrong one buys you a refusal on a technicality: see which airline actually owes you.
The UK half of this page has no binding referee. Neither CAA-approved scheme, AviationADR or CEDR, listed Aer Lingus on 6 September 2026. For a flight out of a UK airport that leaves you with CAA PACT, which the CAA says cannot make a binding decision on an airline. Ireland’s enforcement body still takes the case if the flight departed Ireland or another EU state, so check where you actually took off from before you decide where to file.
Where to send it, and where it goes next
Aer Lingus publishes a Flight Disruption Compensation Claim Form. Our automated check on 6 September 2026 reached it; the form builds itself in the browser, so nothing on this page quotes its wording. Give the booking reference, every flight number on the ticket, and the actual arrival time at your final destination — that time, not the departure delay, is what the Article 7 test turns on.
If the answer is a refusal, an EU or Irish departure goes to the Irish Aviation Authority, which asks you to raise the matter with the airline first. A departure from another EU state goes to that state’s body. A UK departure goes down the CAA route in escalate to the regulator, with the caveat in the callout above.
Does a technical fault let Aer Lingus out of paying?
Usually not. Article 5(3) releases the airline only for extraordinary circumstances it could not have avoided with all reasonable measures, and the Court has held that ordinary technical failures are inherent in running an airline. Ask which component failed and read extraordinary circumstances before you accept the answer.
Can Aer Lingus pay me in vouchers?
Only if you agree in writing. Article 7(3) pays compensation in cash, by electronic bank transfer, bank order or cheque; a travel voucher needs your signed agreement. You can decline the voucher and ask for the transfer without giving up the claim.
My connection through Dublin was the problem. Does it count?
On one booking, yes — the delay is measured at your final destination and the band is measured over the whole journey, so a short first leg can produce a top-band claim. Two separate tickets break that link, because there is then no single contract of carriage to measure across.
Rules in force today
This is the law that applies to a flight you take today. A revision of Regulation 261/2004 was adopted in July 2026 — the Parliament approved the conciliation text on 7 July 2026 and the Council gave final approval on 13 July 2026 — and it is not yet in force: it applies 12 months after it enters into force following publication in the Official Journal, and the final text sets the details. See what the 2026 EU261 reform changes.