Checker · Articles 6(1) and 9 · EU261 and UK261
What the airline owed you while you waited
A long delay, a cancellation or a denied boarding puts the airline on the hook for meals, a hotel where a night becomes necessary, the transport to it, and two free calls or e-mails. The clock is the wait past your scheduled departure time, and it starts at two, three or four hours depending on how far you were flying. Work out which threshold applied, add up what you paid instead, and take the figures straight to the letter.
Care is owed even in extraordinary circumstances. Article 5(3) excuses the airline from paying Article 7 compensation, and nothing else. In McDonagh v Ryanair (C-12/11, 31 January 2013) the Court of Justice held that extraordinary circumstances "do not release air carriers from their obligation … to provide care", that the duty carries no time limit and no money cap, and that a passenger left to pay for themselves may recover the amounts that proved necessary, appropriate and reasonable. Ash cloud, storm, strike: the food and the hotel are still theirs to pay for.
1 Your flight, and what went wrong
Give the route or pick a band to see which Article 6(1) threshold applied.
2 What you paid for instead
One line per receipt. Nothing you type here leaves your browser, and it is forgotten when you close the tab.
| Head of care | Note | Amount | Remove |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total | — | ||
Keep every receipt, and ask before you spend if you still can. There is no cap and no daily allowance anywhere in the Regulation, so the airline tests each line for whether it was necessary, reasonable and appropriate — and the Commission's Interpretative Guidelines (2024 Notice, section 4.3.2) add that reimbursement runs up to the amount matching the airline's own reasonable offer. Ask a member of staff for the vouchers first and write down the time and the name of whoever refused. A refusal on the record turns an argument into a claim.
3 What you can claim
Care owed
Nothing entered yet
—
Your receipts
Fill in step 1 and the checker names the threshold, the article and what Article 9 covers.
The link to the letter carries your flight facts — the airports, the wait, the totals — so you can come back to them. It never carries your name, address, booking reference or payment details, and nothing is sent to a server.
The thresholds
When care becomes due — Article 6(1)
The wait is measured past the scheduled time of departure, not the delay at your destination. Distance is the flight's distance, and an intra-Community flight over 1,500 km sits in Article 6(1)(b) with the 1,500–3,500 km flights — so a 9,370 km flight from Paris to Réunion is owed care after three hours, not four.
| Flight distance | Wait before care is due | Article |
|---|---|---|
| 1,500 km or less | 2 hours | Article 6(1)(a) |
| 1,500 to 3,500 km, and any intra-Community flight over 1,500 km | 3 hours | Article 6(1)(b) |
| over 3,500 km | 4 hours | Article 6(1)(c) |
A cancellation and a denied boarding carry no waiting threshold at all: Article 5(1)(b) and Article 4(3) put the airline on the hook from the moment it happens. And a delay of at least five hours adds a separate right — Article 6(1)(iii) with Article 8(1)(a) lets you abandon the journey and be reimbursed the full ticket price within seven days.
In the UK retained Regulation the same hours and distances apply, but the words "intra-Community flights of more than 1500 kilometres and of" were removed from Article 6(1)(b) on 31 December 2020 by S.I. 2019/278. This checker does not apply the intra-EU rule to a UK case for that reason.
The four heads
What Article 9 actually covers
Print this and fill it in while you wait. It is the same four lines the letter asks for.
| Head of care | Article | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| meals and refreshments in a reasonable relation to the waiting time | Article 9(1)(a) | |
| hotel accommodation in cases where a stay of one or more nights becomes necessary, or where a stay additional to that intended by the passenger becomes necessary | Article 9(1)(b) | |
| transport between the airport and place of accommodation (hotel or other) | Article 9(1)(c) | |
| two telephone calls, telex or fax messages, or e-mails, free of charge | Article 9(2) | |
| Total | ||
Article 9(3) adds that the airline must pay particular attention to passengers with reduced mobility and to anyone travelling with them, and to unaccompanied children.
Next
Claim it
- The expenses letter — meals, hotel and transport, with the articles already written in
- Extraordinary circumstances — what the airline can and cannot escape
- How much you are owed — the separate Article 7 compensation
- The compensation calculator — the distance, the band and the amount for your route
Sources
Where every line on this page comes from
- Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 — Articles 4(3), 5(1)(b), 5(3), 6(1), 8(1)(a) and 9. Fetched 6 September 2026.
- CJEU, McDonagh v Ryanair (C-12/11), judgment of 31 January 2013. Fetched 6 September 2026.
- Commission Notice — Interpretative Guidelines on Regulation 261/2004, C/2024/5687, OJ C, 25.9.2024, section 4.3.2 on the right to care. Fetched 6 September 2026.
- UK retained Regulation, Article 6 and Article 9. Fetched 6 September 2026.
This is general information, not legal advice. We do not state a figure for what a "reasonable" meal or hotel costs, because neither the Regulation nor the Guidelines gives one.