# Business Trip Delayed: Who Keeps the Compensation?

> The €250, €400 or €600 belongs to the passenger who flew, not to the employer who paid the fare. What your travel policy can and cannot do about it.

- Canonical: https://flightclaimletters.pages.dev/guides/business-trip-who-gets-the-money/
- Section: Your situation, explained (https://flightclaimletters.pages.dev/guides/#explainers)
- Published: 6 Sept 2026 · Figures checked: 6 Sept 2026 · 5 min read
- Source site: flightclaimletters — https://flightclaimletters.pages.dev/ · General information, not legal advice.

The compensation belongs to the passenger who flew, not to whoever paid the fare. Article 7 pays €250, €400 or €600 under EU261 — £220, £350 or £520 under UK261 — to the passenger on a flight that lands three or more hours late. Your employer's claim on that money, if any, comes from your contract.

## What the Regulation attaches the right to

[Article 3(2)](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2004/261/oj/eng) puts one condition on you: a confirmed reservation on the flight, and presenting for check-in on time. Article 7(1) then says "passengers shall receive compensation". Nothing in the Article 2 definitions turns on who bought the ticket, whose card was charged or whose name is on the invoice. The Regulation knows about passengers, carriers, tickets and reservations; it does not know about employers.

The Court has taken the same view where a third party paid. In *M1.R. and M2.R. v AAA* ([C-20/24](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A62024CJ0020), 6 March 2025) it held that a passenger is not travelling free of charge or at a non-public reduced fare where the operator was paid at market conditions and the price was paid by a third party rather than by the passenger — and that the airline bears the burden of proving otherwise. A corporate fare bought through a travel management company is a fare available to the public, paid at market conditions, by somebody else. You are the passenger.

The rights are also not something the airline can rearrange in its terms. In *Eventmedia Soluciones v Air Europa* ([C-11/23](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A62023CJ0011), 29 February 2024) the Court held that the right to compensation arises directly from the Regulation, and that Article 15 precludes a clause in a contract of carriage prohibiting the transfer of a passenger's rights against the carrier.

## What the Regulation does not decide

It does not decide what happens between you and your employer. There is no provision on reimbursement, no rule that the payer of the fare takes the money, and no judgment we could open that says otherwise. So the position is this: the claim is yours to make, and whether you must hand the proceeds over is a matter of the contract between you and your employer, not of Regulation 261/2004.

Many travel policies say something about it. Some require the compensation to be paid over because the company bore the cost of the trip; some are silent, which usually means it stays with you; a few say the company will claim it centrally. Read the policy before you send anything, because *Eventmedia* protects your ability to transfer the claim — it does not tell you whether you promised to.

> **Do not let two claims go in for the same flight.** If your travel desk files centrally and you also write to the airline, the airline will use the duplicate to stall both. Ask, in one line, whether the company is claiming for this flight; if it is not, claim yourself and say so.

## Expenses are a different pot

Article 9 care puts back money that was actually spent. If the company card paid for the airport hotel and the taxi, the company is out of pocket and the receipts are the company's; if you paid, they are yours. Keep the two claims apart in the letter — the fixed sum under Article 7 in your name, the receipts under Article 9 attributed to whoever paid them. The [care and expenses tool](/tools/care-and-expenses/) totals the receipts and the [expense reimbursement letter](/guides/expense-reimbursement-letter/) carries them.

## The loss the fixed sum does not cover

A missed day of work is worth more than the standardised inconvenience Article 7 pays for. In *Rusu v Blue Air* ([C-354/18](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A62018CJ0354), 29 July 2019) the Court held that the Article 7(1)(b) amount "is not intended to compensate for damage such as loss of salary", and that such damage may be the subject of the further compensation provided for in Article 12(1), assessed and awarded by a national court. Article 12(1) also allows the fixed sum to be deducted from that further compensation.

That route needs evidence — the contract, the invoice you could not raise, the client meeting you missed — and it goes to a court, not to the airline's claim form. It is the right answer for a genuinely expensive business disruption, and the wrong one for a long afternoon in a lounge.

Work out the band in the [amounts table](/guides/eu261-uk261-amounts/), then send the [delay compensation letter](/guides/delay-compensation-letter/) in your own name. If you are weighing handing the file to an agency instead, [the honest math](/guides/airhelp-vs-diy-honest-math/) has the arithmetic.

## My employer paid for the flight — can they claim instead of me?

Not under the Regulation. Article 7 pays the passenger, and *C-20/24* confirms that a third party paying the price does not change who is protected. Your employer can ask you to assign or hand over the money as a matter of your employment contract, which is a separate agreement the airline is not party to.

## Do I have to tell my employer I claimed?

Regulation 261/2004 says nothing about it. Your travel policy might, and that is where the answer is. Reading it takes two minutes and avoids the awkward version of this conversation later.

## Can the airline refuse because the ticket was a corporate fare?

Only if it proves the fare was not available directly or indirectly to the public — a staff or closed-programme ticket. After *C-20/24* the burden sits with the airline, so ask it to state the basis in writing before you accept the refusal.