Missed connection: compensation for connecting flights under EU261

Flights booked together under one reservation count as one journey. The delay is measured at the final destination: arriving 3 hours or more late can be enough, even if the first flight was only a little late (Folkerts, C-11/11), unless the airline proves extraordinary circumstances it could not have avoided.

Flights booked separately count one by one: you can claim for the first flight if it was itself 3 hours late, but not for the missed second flight.

• Starting in the EU: covered on any airline, even when the connection is outside the EU, for example Rome–Istanbul–New York (Wegener, C-537/17).
• Starting outside the EU and ending in it: covered when a European airline operated one of the flights of the booking, even the one within the EU after you landed with another airline, for example New York–Frankfurt on a US airline, then Frankfurt–Rome on Lufthansa (C-367/20).
• Between two places outside the EU, with a stop in the EU: not covered (C-451/20).

The amount follows the straight-line distance from your first departure to your final destination, not the sum of the flights: Rome–Munich–Hamburg counts as Rome–Hamburg (Bossen, C-559/16).

• €250 up to 1,500 km, €400 from 1,500 to 3,500 km and for longer journeys within the EU, €600 for other journeys over 3,500 km, which the airline may halve if you arrived 3 to 4 hours late.

The claim goes to the airline that operated the flights. On a single booking, an EU airline that operated the first flight can be asked to pay even when the delay arose on a later flight operated by a partner (České aerolinie, C-502/18).

If you reached the gate in time but the airline refused you boarding on the next flight because it assumed you would miss it, that is denied boarding: compensation is due without any 3-hour delay (Rodríguez Cachafeiro, C-321/11).

Write to the airline with your booking reference, every flight number and date, and the time you finally arrived. Keep the boarding passes of all the flights.

Dueply checks flights one at a time today; a whole journey with connections is on its way. For a missed connection, use the details above to write to the airline yourself.