A Pegasus flight out of an EU, EEA or UK airport is covered: €250 or €400 by distance under EU261, £220 or £350 under UK261. A Pegasus flight into Europe from Istanbul is not. Article 3(1)(b) reaches an inbound flight only when the operating airline holds an EU or EEA licence, and Pegasus holds a Turkish one.
Article 7 names cancellation and denied boarding on its face; the same fixed sum after a three-hour arrival delay comes from Sturgeon (C-402/07 and C-432/07, 2009), upheld in Nelson (C-581/10 and C-629/10, 2012). The bands are in the amounts table.
The direction rule, in two lines
| Your Pegasus flight | Covered? |
|---|---|
| Departs an EU, EEA or UK airport | Yes — EU261 from an EU or EEA airport, UK261 from a UK airport, whichever airline flies you |
| Departs Turkey or any other non-EU airport, arriving in Europe | No — Article 3(1)(b) needs a Community carrier |
“Community carrier” is defined in Article 2(c) as an airline with an operating licence granted by a Member State. Turkey is in neither the EU nor the EEA, so a Pegasus flight from Istanbul is outside the Regulation whatever it does to your evening. This is the scope of the law, not a refusal to argue with, and no enforcement body will move it. The full grid is in does EU261 cover non-EU airlines.
Where the bands fall on a European departure
Great-circle distance to your final destination sets the amount, and because Turkey is outside the Union there is no intra-EU cap in play. From the airport coordinates this site ships, measuring to Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen:
| Route | Great-circle | Band |
|---|---|---|
| Sofia – Istanbul SAW | 527 km | €250 |
| Vienna – Istanbul SAW | 1,287 km | €250 |
| Milan Malpensa – Istanbul SAW | 1,742 km | €400 |
| Berlin – Istanbul SAW | 1,748 km | €400 |
| Copenhagen – Istanbul SAW | 2,038 km | €400 |
| Düsseldorf – Istanbul SAW | 2,074 km | €400 |
| Amsterdam – Istanbul SAW | 2,246 km | €400 |
| Paris CDG – Istanbul SAW | 2,275 km | €400 |
| London Gatwick – Istanbul SAW | 2,523 km | £350 under UK261 |
| Manchester – Istanbul SAW | 2,729 km | £350 under UK261 |
So the realistic answer on almost every European departure is €400, or £350 from a UK airport. The €250 band belongs to the Balkans and central Europe, and nothing on this network reaches €600, because the top band needs more than 3,500 km. The measuring rule is in how flight distance is measured.
The outbound and the return are two different legal worlds on one booking. Berlin to Istanbul, delayed four hours: €400. Istanbul to Berlin, delayed four hours, same aircraft, same airline, same reservation: no fixed compensation at all. A return ticket feels like one purchase. Under Article 3 it is two flights, judged separately, and only the European departure carries the Article 7 claim.
Turkey’s own rules on the flight home
Turkey has its own air passenger rights regulation, made and enforced by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (SHGM). We could not open the SHGM’s site on 6 September 2026 — every request to it was reset — so we do not restate here what that regulation gives you, what its thresholds are or what it pays. Ask the SHGM directly about a flight that departed Turkey, and do not accept a figure from a page that cannot show you the rule it came from.
Separately, if your journey was international carriage between two states that are parties to the Montreal Convention, the Convention route exists whichever airline flew you: Article 19 pays proven, receipted loss caused by delay rather than a fixed sum, and the written-complaint clocks for baggage are short. Start at EU261 vs the Montreal Convention.
Where to send a Pegasus claim
We could not open Pegasus’s own passenger-rights page: two candidate paths on flypgs.com returned HTTP 404 on 6 September 2026, so we do not publish a claim URL here. Use the airline’s own help centre, keep the reference number, and send the same text by email. Give the booking reference, every flight number, and the actual arrival time at your final destination.
If it refuses a covered claim, the body is the one for the airport you departed from, never the airline’s home country and never Turkey. The European Commission’s list of national enforcement bodies, updated 27 August 2026, says to contact the body in the country where the incident took place — Germany’s LBA for a Berlin departure, the Dutch ILT for an Amsterdam one, and so on through the directory in where to complain. For a UK departure, neither CAA-approved scheme listed Pegasus on 6 September 2026, which leaves CAA PACT, and the CAA says PACT cannot make a binding decision on an airline.
Does a connection through Istanbul change the answer?
If it is one booking that starts at a European airport, Article 3(1)(a) covers the whole journey and the band is measured to your final destination, not to Istanbul — so a Berlin–Istanbul–Tbilisi ticket is judged on the distance to Tbilisi. Two separate tickets break that link, because there is then no single contract of carriage to measure across.
Pegasus offered a voucher. Can I insist on money?
On a covered European departure, yes. Article 7(3) pays compensation in cash, by electronic bank transfer, bank order or cheque, and allows a travel voucher only with your signed agreement. Say in the claim that you want payment by bank transfer, and give the account details once.
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.