Flight cancelled: refund, new flight and compensation under EU261

Whatever the reason, the airline must let you choose between:

• a refund within 7 days of the parts of the ticket not used, and of those used too if the trip no longer makes sense, with a flight back to where you started;
• another flight to your destination as soon as possible;
• another flight on a later date that suits you, if seats are available.

While you wait for the earliest new flight, it must also provide meals and drinks and, if needed, a hotel and the transfer to it.

When you were told less than 14 days before departure, unless the new flight kept you close to your original times:

• told 7 to 14 days before: leaving no more than 2 hours earlier and arriving less than 4 hours later;
• told less than 7 days before: leaving no more than 1 hour earlier and arriving less than 2 hours later.

Keep the message that announced the cancellation: when you were told is what counts, and it is for the airline to prove it.

• €250 for flights up to 1,500 km.
• €400 for flights between 1,500 and 3,500 km, and for every flight over 1,500 km within the EU.
• €600 for other flights over 3,500 km.

The airline may halve the amount when the new flight gets you there no more than 2 hours (flights up to 1,500 km), 3 hours (up to 3,500 km) or 4 hours (longer flights) after the original arrival.

Only if it proves that extraordinary circumstances caused the cancellation and that it could not have avoided it even with every reasonable measure: bad weather, air traffic control restrictions, security events or strikes outside the airline can qualify. A cancellation for a technical fault, a strike by its own staff or a change of schedule usually still means compensation.

The refund or the new flight are owed in every case.

Write to the airline through its claims form with your flight number and date, your booking reference, when you were told, the amount and the rule: Regulation (EC) 261/2004, Articles 5 and 7.

Dueply checks your flight, asks when you were told and what you were offered, and prepares the letter, with no commission.