What are the EU EC 261 Rules!
Under the European Union’s EC 261 rules, if an airline delays a flight more than 3 hours and it’s their fault, (rather than weather or government-related), they must pay you cash and must still fly you to your destination. It’s defined as compensation for the inconvenience, based on the distance of your flight and the length of the delay.
Under the European Legislation called EC 261, Travelusave through Compensair, can support these types of claims:
Flight disruptions: Delays of more than three hours, cancellations or denied boardings that have occurred in the last three years may all be eligible.
Where:
- On a flight from outside of the EU to within the EU on an EU airline
- Intra-EU flights
- A flight departing from the EU to outside the EU with all airlines
How much compensation per passenger:
- Under 1,500 km: €250
- Between 1,500 km and 3,500 km: €400
- Over 3,500 km: €600
In the USA and other parts of the world, airlines are left to dish out compensation as they feel appropriate, with no “guaranteed” obligations or legal requirements.
However, now that European delay coverage has been ruled to cover some domestic flights in the US, on US airlines. This follows on a previous ruling that saw airlines in the Middle East face the same music.
How to claim flight compensation from US airline flights!
Based on previous cases with Emirate Airlines, it has now been ruled that if someone is on a single itinerary — aka one ticket — the metric that counts is when they make it to the final ticketed destination. If that delay is more than 3 hours there’s compensation, and if it’s more than 4 hours, there’s more.
Basically, it doesn’t matter if the onward airline isn’t European, or the connecting flight was between two non-European places. When a trip is over 3500km, circa 2,174 miles, and is delayed by four hours, a passenger is due a whopping €600 — about $650 USD.
United Airlines and Lufthansa flight compensation!
As an example, a passenger booked travel between Brussels and San Jose, California, with a flight connection in Newark. The passenger flew from Brussels to the US with Lufthansa and then from Newark to San Jose with United.
United’s flights ended up running 3 hours and 40 minutes late that day, and because the passenger was on a single ticket and reached their final destination with a delay greater than 3 hours, it’s been ruled that compensation is due.
Even though it was United, a non-European airline that created the delay and the flight was a domestic flight in the United States, it still counts. United was ruled to be liable for €600, or about $650 per passenger, even on this domestic flight.
Visit Travelusave’s Flight Compensation page to help you with filing any and all of your flight compensation claims!
