# Lufthansa Compensation Claim: Delays & Cancellations

> Claim €250, €400 or €600 from Lufthansa — £220 to £520 from the UK. Lufthansa lost the case that fixed the three-hour rule, and the LBA hears refusals.

- Canonical: https://flightclaimletters.pages.dev/guides/lufthansa-compensation/
- Section: By airline (https://flightclaimletters.pages.dev/guides/#airlines)
- Published: 2 Sept 2026 · Updated: 6 Sept 2026 · Figures checked: 6 Sept 2026 · 5 min read
- Source site: flightclaimletters — https://flightclaimletters.pages.dev/ · General information, not legal advice.

Lufthansa owes €250, €400 or €600 by distance — £220, £350 or £520 from a UK airport — for a three-hour arrival delay, a cancellation with under 14 days' notice, or denied boarding. It is licensed in Germany, so EU261 covers every flight it operates out of the EU and into the EU. A refusal goes to the Luftfahrt-Bundesamt.

Which figure applies is set by distance to your final destination, not by your fare — the bands are in the [amounts table](/guides/eu261-uk261-amounts/).

## Which regime applies to your Lufthansa flight

| Your flight | Regime |
|---|---|
| Departs an EU airport, or arrives in the EU from outside on Lufthansa | **EU261** — euro amounts, enforcement body of the country you left |
| Departs a UK airport | **UK261** — sterling amounts, CAA route |

## Lufthansa is the airline named in the case that settled the three-hour rule

*Sturgeon* created the right in 2009; it was **Nelson v Deutsche Lufthansa AG** ([C-581/10](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A62010CJ0581), 23 October 2012) that confirmed it. The Court held that passengers who lose three hours or more reach their destination late enough to be entitled to the Article 7 sum, and that this is compatible with the Montreal Convention.

Airlines stopped disputing the principle after that judgment. If a Lufthansa reply suggests Article 7 does not reach delays, the answer is one line: the case that decided it was brought against Lufthansa, and Lufthansa lost.

## Your "Lufthansa" flight may not have been operated by Lufthansa

The Lufthansa Group flies under several licences. Our carrier file records that a flight sold as Lufthansa may have been operated by **Discover, CityLine, Air Dolomiti, Eurowings, Swiss, Austrian or Brussels Airlines** — and Article 2(b) puts the obligation on the airline that **operated** it.

One of those matters more than the rest. **Swiss is neither an EU nor an EEA carrier**, because Switzerland is in neither. A flight into the EU from outside it, operated by Swiss, is outside Regulation 261/2004 — Swiss departures are covered by the equivalent Swiss rules, enforced by FOCA. Check the "operated by" line before you write; see [which airline actually owes you](/guides/codeshare-which-airline-pays/).

## We could not confirm a claim URL

We do not publish an airline link we could not open. On 6 September 2026 lufthansa.com returned HTTP 403 to every automated request, including its own home page, so no claim URL is listed for Lufthansa in our carrier file. Use its passenger-rights and feedback pages in a browser, keep the case reference, and set a date for a reply.

## Which band you are in, and when it can be halved

The €600 band needs more than 3,500 km with one end outside the EU — the long-haul sectors out of Frankfurt and Munich. Any flight with both ends inside the EU is capped at €400 by Article 7(1)(b), however far it goes. On a connecting itinerary booked as one ticket, the band is measured over the whole journey to your **final destination**, which is how a short first leg still produces a top-band claim: see [connecting flights and the final destination](/guides/connecting-flights-final-destination/).

Article 7(2) lets the airline halve the amount only where it **re-routes** you and you land within 2, 3 or 4 hours of your original arrival, by band; the Court in *Sturgeon* ([paragraph 63](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A62007CJ0402)) applies the same reduction to a flight of more than 3,500 km that arrives three to under four hours late, giving €300.

## Where a Lufthansa claim goes after a refusal

- **EU departures.** Germany's enforcement body is the **[Luftfahrt-Bundesamt](https://www.lba.de/EN/AirPassengersRights/Complaint_Form/Complaint_Form_node.html)** (LBA), which takes complaints in English (fluggastrechte@lba.de). Germany also has a conciliation body for travel and transport, the [Schlichtungsstelle Reise & Verkehr](https://www.schlichtung-reise-und-verkehr.de/en/), the former söp — we did not verify which airlines belong to it, so check there before you file. For departures from any other EU country, use that country's body.
- **UK departures.** Lufthansa was on neither CAA-approved ADR scheme's member list on 6 September 2026, so the UK route is CAA PACT, which cannot make a binding decision.

> **A strike is not one thing.** Whose strike it was decides the answer, and an airline that writes only "strike" has not answered the question. Ask which workforce stopped, on which date, and what re-routing was offered — then read [airline strikes and compensation](/guides/airline-strikes-compensation/).

## I missed my connection in Frankfurt. Can I still claim?

Yes, if you were on one booking and reached your final destination three or more hours late for a reason within the airline's control. The band is set by the distance to that final destination, not by the leg that went wrong.

## Which Lufthansa Group airline do I claim from?

The one that operated the flight, under Article 2(b) — Lufthansa, CityLine, Discover, Air Dolomiti, Eurowings, Swiss, Austrian or Brussels. A claim addressed to the wrong group company is rejected on the technicality instead of the merits.

## How long do I have to claim in Germany?

There is no EU-wide deadline; the period is set by the national law that applies to your claim. We have not verified the German limitation period against the statute, so we will not print a number — ask the Luftfahrt-Bundesamt or check the German civil code before you rely on a date.

## 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](/guides/eu261-reform-2026/).