Care starts at a fixed wait, not at a fixed hour: two hours for a flight of 1,500 km or less, three hours from 1,500 to 3,500 km, four hours beyond that. Article 6(1) counts the wait past the scheduled departure time, and the airline owes it even when the cause was extraordinary.
The wait that starts the clock
| Flight distance | Wait before care is due | Provision |
|---|---|---|
| 1,500 km or less | 2 hours | Article 6(1)(a) |
| Intra-EU over 1,500 km, or any flight 1,500–3,500 km | 3 hours | Article 6(1)(b) |
| Over 3,500 km | 4 hours | Article 6(1)(c) |
Article 6(1) applies “when an operating air carrier reasonably expects a flight to be delayed beyond its scheduled time of departure”. That is the wait at the airport. It is not the same clock as the three-hour arrival delay that carries the fixed sum: Article 7 names cancellation and denied boarding, and the right to the same fixed sum after a 3-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). Two clocks, two rights, and one can run without the other.
A cancellation and a denied boarding carry no waiting threshold at all. Article 5(1)(b) gives care from the moment the flight is cancelled, and Article 4(3) requires the airline to assist you under Articles 8 and 9 immediately when it refuses to carry you.
The clock is the scheduled departure time on your boarding pass. Airlines count from the last revised departure time they announced, which resets the wait every time they push it back an hour. Article 6(1) does not work that way. Note the original scheduled time before the app overwrites it, and photograph the board.
What care actually means
Article 9 lists four things, and only four:
- meals and refreshments in a reasonable relation to the waiting time — Article 9(1)(a);
- hotel accommodation where a stay of one or more nights becomes necessary, or a stay additional to the one you intended — Article 9(1)(b);
- transport between the airport and the place of accommodation — Article 9(1)(c);
- two telephone calls, telex or fax messages, or e-mails, free of charge — Article 9(2).
On a delay, the hotel and the transfer to it only arrive once the reasonably expected departure is at least the day after the time previously announced — Article 6(1)(ii). And once the delay reaches five hours, Article 6(1)(iii) adds the Article 8(1)(a) choice: give up the flight and take the ticket price back within seven days.
Article 9(3) also requires particular attention to passengers with reduced mobility, anyone accompanying them, and unaccompanied children. Say so at the desk if it applies to you.
The UK thresholds are not identical
The UK retained Article 6(1)(b) reads “three hours or more in the case of all flights between 1500 and 3500 kilometres”. The words “intra-Community flights of more than 1500 kilometres and of” were omitted on 31 December 2020 by S.I. 2019/278. The practical difference: under EU261 a flight that stays inside the EU is capped in the middle limb however long it is, so care is due at three hours; under UK261 a flight over 3,500 km always falls into the four-hour limb. The Article 9 list itself is word-for-word the same.
One further UK difference is worth knowing while you wait: Article 6(3) of the retained Regulation now states in terms that a delay of three hours or more in reaching the final destination carries the Article 7 compensation, inserted on 14 December 2023 by S.I. 2023/1370.
Extraordinary circumstances do not switch care off
Article 5(3) excuses the airline from paying Article 7 compensation, and nothing else. Article 6(1) has no equivalent exception at all. The Court of Justice settled it in McDonagh v Ryanair (C-12/11, 31 January 2013): the closure of European airspace after the Eyjafjallajökull eruption was an extraordinary circumstance, and it did “not release air carriers from their obligation laid down in Articles 5(1)(b) and 9”. The obligation carries no time limit and no money cap.
So “it was the weather” answers the compensation claim and leaves the sandwich, the hotel and the taxi exactly where they were. If the airline gave you nothing, the same judgment sets what you can recover: the amounts which, in the circumstances of the case, “proved necessary, appropriate and reasonable” to make up for what the airline failed to provide.
Getting it back after the fact
Work out what was owed on your facts with the care and expenses tool, then send the expense reimbursement letter with the receipts attached. If a night was involved, what to do when a delay runs overnight covers the hotel on its own. If the airline refused the hotel outright rather than just being slow to arrange one, the airline refused you a hotel letter puts that refusal in writing. Check the cause against extraordinary circumstances before you accept a refusal, and the separate fixed sum against the amounts table.
Is there a limit on what the airline has to spend?
The Regulation sets none — no cap, no daily allowance, no star rating. The test is what was necessary, appropriate and reasonable on your facts, which is judged line by line. A hotel near the airport at the going rate is reasonable; a suite is a conversation you will lose.
Does care come out of my compensation?
No. Article 7 compensation and Article 9 care are separate obligations, and the Regulation contains no provision setting one against the other. An airline that offers a meal voucher “instead of” the fixed sum is offering you one thing you were owed anyway.
The airline gave me nothing — what now?
Buy what you reasonably need, keep every receipt, and photograph the desk queue or the notice if there was no staff at all. Then claim in writing. Refusals that turn on the cause of the delay are answerable with McDonagh; refusals that turn on the amount are answerable with the receipts.