Do five things before you leave the terminal: get the reason in writing, photograph the board, keep every boarding pass, ask for care out loud, and refuse any voucher offered as settlement. Under Article 7(3) a travel voucher only counts if you sign for it. The fixed sum is €250, €400 or €600.
The next hour, in five steps
- Ask the desk for the cause of the disruption in writing, and the new departure time. Note the agent’s name and the time.
- Photograph the departure board showing your flight and the clock, and screenshot the airline app before it updates.
- Keep the boarding passes, the bag tags and the booking reference. Paper beats memory in a claim eight months later.
- Ask for meals, and for a hotel and transport if a night is involved. If refused, buy what you reasonably need and keep every receipt.
- Decline any voucher, credit or “goodwill” form presented as full and final settlement. Take the re-routing; leave the settlement.
If the desk will not put the cause in writing on the spot, the get the reason in writing letter is the formal version of that request.
What you can ask for, and under what
Article 14 obliges the airline to hand you a written notice of the rules on compensation and assistance whenever you are denied boarding, cancelled, or delayed by at least two hours, with the contact details of the national enforcement body. Ask for it by name: it is free, it is instant, and asking creates a record that you did.
Care itself starts on the clock in Article 6(1) — two hours for a flight of 1,500 km or less, three hours from 1,500 to 3,500 km, four hours beyond, measured past the scheduled departure. A cancellation brings it immediately under Article 5(1)(b), and a denied boarding immediately under Article 4(3). Article 8 gives you the choice between a refund within seven days and re-routing at the earliest opportunity; you pick, not the airline.
The separate fixed sum turns on the arrival at your final destination. 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). Which is why step two matters: you will need the actual arrival time, and nobody records it for you.
The voucher is the trap, and it is always offered while you are tired. Article 7(3) pays compensation in cash, by electronic bank transfer, bank order or cheque, and “with the signed agreement of the passenger, in travel vouchers”. A signature at a desk at midnight is that agreement. Take the hotel, take the rebooking, sign nothing that mentions settlement.
In the United States it is a different set of rules
US federal law has no equivalent of the Article 9 care duty and no fixed payment for a delay, so what you get for waiting comes from the airline’s own commitments. Two things are federal, and both are worth asking for at the desk.
Refunds. Under 14 CFR Part 260 a full refund of the airfare, taxes and ancillary fees is due when the flight is cancelled and no alternative is offered, or when the itinerary is significantly changed and you reject the alternative — a change measured at 3 hours domestic and 6 hours international under § 260.2. Refunds run within 7 business days for a card purchase and 20 calendar days for other payment methods (§ 260.10). Fees for a service you paid for and did not get carry their own automatic refund.
Bumping. Under 14 CFR Part 250 involuntary denied boarding pays 200 % of the one-way fare up to $1,075, or 400 % up to $2,150 on the longer delays, and the carrier must tender cash or an immediately negotiable cheque on the day and at the place the bumping occurs (§ 250.8) plus a written statement of your rights (§ 250.9). If it offers a travel credit instead, § 250.5(c) requires it to tell you the cash amount otherwise due and that you may decline the voucher and take the money.
The fuller picture, with the enforcement route, is in US passenger rights.
Once you are home
Work out what you are owed from the route and the delay with the compensation calculator, or start from what happened using the claim finder. Total the receipts in the care and expenses tool. If a voucher was pushed on you anyway, what to do when the airline offers a voucher covers getting back to cash.
The desk says the delay is weather — is there any point claiming?
Yes, for two of the three rights. Extraordinary circumstances excuse the fixed sum under Article 7 and nothing else: meals, the hotel and the transport under Article 9, and the refund or re-routing under Article 8, are owed whatever the cause. Get the reason in writing anyway; airlines say weather more often than the weather says it.
Should I book my own hotel or wait for the airline?
Ask first, and give them a short, recorded chance to arrange it. If there is nobody at the desk or the answer is no, book an ordinary room, keep the invoice and the transport receipt, and claim it back — see when an airline owes you meals and a hotel.
They are offering me a rebooking tomorrow — do I have to take it?
No. Article 8 gives you the choice, and the alternatives are a refund within seven days or re-routing at the earliest opportunity, which is not necessarily the airline’s own next flight. Say which one you are choosing, and say it in writing.