A letter before claim is the last step before you issue. In England and Wales the Practice Direction on Pre-Action Conduct expects a defendant to reply within 14 days in a straightforward case, and lets the court penalise a party who ignored the process. The letter below is built to meet it.
[Your full name]
[Your address]
[Email]
[Phone]
[Today's date]
[Airline name] — Legal Department / Customer Relations
[Airline claims address or online claim form]
Re: Letter before claim
Flight [Flight number]
Route [Departure airport] to [Final destination airport]
Date of flight [Flight date]
Booking reference [Booking reference]
Your reference [Reference number]
Dear Sir or Madam,
This is a letter before claim under the Practice Direction on Pre-Action
Conduct and Protocols. Please read it and reply within 14 days.
THE CLAIM
I was a confirmed passenger on flight [Flight number] from
[Departure airport] to [Final destination airport] on [Flight date],
booking reference [Booking reference]. The flight was
[delayed / cancelled / overbooked] and I reached my final destination
[Hours and minutes late] late.
THE BASIS OF THE CLAIM
Article 7 of Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, as it applies in
[EU law / UK law], sets fixed compensation by great-circle distance to
the final destination. The distance from [Departure airport] to
[Final destination airport] is approximately [Distance in km] km, which
falls in the [Distance band] band.
THE AMOUNT CLAIMED
[Currency] [Amount], together with interest and the court fee if a claim
is issued.
WHAT HAS HAPPENED SO FAR
I claimed on [Date you asked for the refund]. Your response was
[a written refusal / no response at all]. The correspondence is enclosed.
WHAT I WANT
Payment of [Currency] [Amount] to [Payment details] within 14 days of
the date of this letter.
DOCUMENTS
I enclose the booking confirmation, the boarding passes and our
correspondence. Please send me copies of any document you intend to rely
on, including the operational record for the flight and any evidence of
extraordinary circumstances.
If I have no payment and no reply within 14 days, I intend to issue a
claim without further notice, and I will refer the court to this letter
on the question of costs and interest.
Yours faithfully,
[Signature]
[Your full name]
How to use it
- Check your limitation period first. Six years in England, Wales and Northern Ireland; five in Scotland; elsewhere see time limits by country.
- Name the right defendant: the operating air carrier, with the legal entity and address from its own conditions of carriage.
- Send it by post and by email, and keep proof of both.
- Diarise day 15. Issue, or decide not to, but do not let it drift.
- Keep the letter. You will attach it to the claim form and to any costs argument.
Do not send this unless you mean it. The Practice Direction lets a court impose costs sanctions, order interest penalties or stay proceedings where a party has not complied — and an empty threat that you never act on is the one thing that tells an airline your file can be closed. If you are not ready for court, send the 14-day chaser instead.
What the Practice Direction actually asks for
The claimant’s letter should set out concise details of the claim, the basis on which it is made, a summary of the facts, what the claimant wants from the defendant, and — where money is claimed — how the amount is calculated. The defendant should reply within a reasonable time: the Practice Direction gives 14 days in a straightforward case and no more than three months in a very complex one. A flight compensation claim is a straightforward case.
The parties are also expected to consider alternative dispute resolution. For an airline that belongs to a CAA-approved scheme, going through ADR first is both free and the sensible answer to that expectation.
Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland
The Practice Direction is a rule of the courts of England and Wales; it does not bind a Scottish or Irish court. The substance still travels — a dated demand, the facts, the figure and how you got to it, and a deadline — and no court anywhere penalises a claimant for having written it. In Scotland the simple procedure runs in the sheriff court and the prescriptive period is five years. In Northern Ireland the small claims process is the county court’s. In Ireland the District Court’s small claims procedure has its own online route and its own limitation rules, which we have not verified and which you should check before relying on a date.
Against a German-domiciled airline, the equivalent fast-track route is not a letter before claim at all but the Mahnverfahren payment order, a court-administered process that starts without a hearing.
Does a letter before claim have to be posted?
No form is prescribed. Post plus email is the safest combination, because you need to be able to tell a court when the airline received it. Keep the proof of posting.
What if the airline replies and disputes the facts?
Then you have what you needed: a stated reason. Ask for the documents behind it, since under Article 5(3) the airline carries the burden of proving extraordinary circumstances. Check the reason against extraordinary circumstances before you decide whether to issue. If it instead offers to pay part of the claim, the partial settlement letter answers that directly rather than an outright refusal.
What happens if I have to issue?
For England and Wales the online route and the fee bands are in suing an airline through Money Claim Online. Court fees are recoverable if you win, which is why the letter mentions them.