Guide · 9 min read
How to claim flight compensation yourself
Six steps, in order, with the dates attached. You can run every one of them for nothing. This page is the whole sequence, including the two places where valid claims quietly die.
Free check first. The verdict arrives before any payment screen.
Claim sent on day 0; the follow-up letter falls due on day 42.
Claiming flight compensation is a written sequence: establish the arrival delay at the final destination, send a cited claim to the airline's own claim form, follow up around day 42, then complain free to the national enforcement body. EU261 pays €250, €400 or €600 per passenger; UK261 pays £220, £350 or £520.
What to have in front of you
Gather these before you write anything. Ten minutes, and it decides whether the first letter lands as a claim or as a complaint. Airlines treat those differently.
| What you need | Why it decides the claim |
|---|---|
| Booking reference | The airline's claim form won't open without it, and it ties every passenger to one file. |
| Boarding passes, or the booking confirmation | Proof that each named passenger flew. Compensation is per passenger, so a missing name is a missing €250 to €600. |
| Arrival time at the final destination | The threshold is three hours there, not at departure. On a connection it's when you reached the last airport on the ticket. |
| What the airline said, in writing if possible | The stated cause decides whether Art. 5(3) is in play. A gate announcement, an app notification or an email all count. |
| Every passenger on the booking | One claim, filed once, covers all of them. Four people in the €600 band is €2,400. |
| Receipts for meals, hotel and transfers | Art. 9 care is reimbursable even on claims where compensation isn't owed. |
Screenshot the departure board and the app notification while you're still at the airport. Airlines take their delay data down; your screenshot doesn't expire.
The six steps, with the dates
Same order every time, whether the flight was a Munich–Rome hop or a Frankfurt–Newark long haul. Steps five and six are the ones most people never reach, which is the only reason airlines can afford to ignore step three.
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Day 0 · about ten minutesEstablish the facts that decide it
Five things: the route, the date, how late you landed at the final destination, the cause the airline gave, and how many passengers were on the booking. That last one is worth money — the amount is per person, not per booking. Under three hours late, nothing is owed and the rest of this page doesn't apply to you.
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Day 0 · same sittingWork out the regime and the band
EU261 pays €250 up to 1,500 km, €400 in the middle band, and €600 over 3,500 km on a route that isn't intra-EU. UK261 mirrors it in sterling at £220, £350 and £520, and applies when you left a UK airport or arrived at one on a UK-licensed carrier. The EU261 bands and who qualifies and the UK261 amounts in sterling set out both.
The trap is Art. 3(1)(b), and it catches people flying into Europe. Leaving an EU or EEA airport, you're covered whoever operates the flight. Arriving from outside, you're covered only if the operating carrier is EU-licensed — so Emirates or Qatar into Frankfurt falls outside EU261 entirely, while the same airlines out of Frankfurt are inside it. Check this before you spend an evening on the letter.
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Day 0 · the letterSend it where the airline reads it
Not the general customer-service inbox. Almost every carrier runs a separate EU261 claim form, and that form is the only channel with a case number attached. Ryanair is the clearest case: it requires its own EU261 form and routinely ignores letters sent anywhere else. Lufthansa takes attachments but rejects anything over 5 MB, so send the boarding passes as one compressed PDF rather than six phone photos — Austrian sits behind the same Lufthansa Group handling and the same limit.
Cite the article. A letter that names Art. 7(1) and states the arrival delay at the final destination gets processed; a letter that describes how the day felt gets a voucher offer. State the amount, the currency and every passenger's name, and ask for a bank transfer. Wizz Air pushes its own credit instead of cash — decline it in writing.
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Day 42 · the follow-upWait, then follow up once
Typical first replies run from four weeks — British Airways, easyJet, Ryanair and the US carriers — out to ten for TAP. Six weeks is the middle of the pack. Day 42 is the follow-up date we use: late enough that a slow airline has had its run, early enough to leave room before any limitation period bites.
The follow-up repeats the claim, references the original submission date and the case number, and says what happens next. Air France in particular needs it; it's slow, and the second letter moves it more reliably than the first. Send one, not five. A file that shows one claim and one measured follow-up reads better to a regulator than a stack of angry emails.
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Week 4 to 8 · freeEscalate to the national enforcement body
There are 18 of them and none of them charge. The regulator wants the airline to have had its chance first: AESA in Spain asks for 4 weeks, ENAC in Italy, ANAC in Portugal, apf in Austria and Ireland's Commission for Aviation Regulation ask for 6, and the UK CAA, the German LBA, the French DGAC, the Dutch ILT and the Nordic bodies ask for 8. File before that and it comes straight back to you.
Send it to the body for the country the flight departed from, attaching the claim, the follow-up and anything the airline sent back. Iberia is often silent until the AESA complaint lands. The regulator existing at all is most of what moves an airline.
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Before the limitation dateSmall claims, if it comes to that
Most claims never get here. If yours does, EU261 compensation is a money debt like any other and the national small-claims procedure is where it's pursued. The one hard rule is the deadline below: a claim filed after the limitation period has run is dead no matter how good it was.
Reply times and your regulator
Two numbers set your calendar: how long the airline usually takes to answer, and how long its regulator wants it to have first. Where they differ, the longer one wins.
| Airline | Country | First reply | Enforcement body | Weeks first |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| British Airways | GB | 4 weeks | UK CAA (PACT) | 8 |
| easyJet | GB | 4 weeks | UK CAA (PACT) | 8 |
| Ryanair | IE | 4 weeks | Commission for Aviation Regulation | 6 |
| Lufthansa | DE | 6 weeks | Luftfahrt-Bundesamt (LBA) | 8 |
| KLM | NL | 6 weeks | ILT | 8 |
| Air France | FR | 8 weeks | DGAC | 8 |
| Iberia | ES | 8 weeks | AESA | 4 |
| ITA Airways | IT | 8 weeks | ENAC | 6 |
| TAP Air Portugal | PT | 10 weeks | ANAC | 6 |
Nine of the 21 airlines in the directory. Reply times are typical, not promised — no carrier signed a service level.
The deadline that kills valid claims
This is the one to read twice. The limitation period runs from the flight date, it varies by country, and it's short in places nobody expects. Belgium and Poland give you 1 year. The Netherlands and Italy give you 2. The UK and Ireland give you 6, which is why a British passenger can dig out a 2021 boarding pass and still be in time.
The period that applies is the one for the country whose courts would hear the claim, not the country you flew to. A Brussels departure is a one-year clock even if you were on your way to Manchester. Airlines don't remind you. A claim that spent eleven months in a queue and then expired is the most common way a good file ends up worth nothing.
Write the expiry date on the file before you write the letter. Then work backwards: if the limitation period is 1 year, the regulator complaint goes at week 8 and not week 30. The kit's deadline sheet and tracker do this arithmetic for every country in the list.
Doing it free, and what $19 changes
Every step above is free. The regulation is public, the airline's claim form costs nothing, the 18 enforcement bodies charge nothing, and plenty of people recover €600 with a plain email and some patience. If that's you, take this page and go — we'd rather rank for being right than sell you something you don't need.
What the $19 kit changes is four things, and none of them is the outcome. The letters are already written and cited to the article, so the claim reads as a claim. The submission addresses are the real ones for 21 carriers, not the customer-service form. The rebuttals for the six excuses airlines actually use are ready before the rejection arrives — a technical fault answered with the extraordinary-circumstances case law. And the tracker holds the dates: day 42, the regulator's window, the limitation expiry. The full breakdown of what $19 covers lists all seven pieces.
A no-win-no-fee claim company is the third option and it's a real one. They carry the risk, do the chasing, and take a commission — up to 35% — out of what lands. That's a fair trade if you won't chase it yourself, and a poor one on a family booking where the percentage compounds; the arithmetic is laid out in the claim-company comparison. One case where filing yourself simply wins: Ryanair refuses claims submitted by claim companies, so there's no third party to hand it to.
Questions people ask
Can I claim flight compensation myself?
Yes, and it costs nothing. You submit the airline's own EU261 form, follow up once, then complain free to your national enforcement body. No lawyer and no claim company is required at any point, and Ryanair will only deal with you directly.
Where do I send a flight compensation claim?
To the airline's dedicated claim form, not its general customer-service inbox. Ryanair requires its own EU261 form and ignores letters sent elsewhere. Lufthansa accepts attachments but rejects anything over 5 MB, so compress the boarding passes into a single PDF.
How long does a flight compensation claim take?
A first reply typically lands in 4 weeks for British Airways, easyJet, Ryanair and the US carriers, 6 for most of the rest, and up to 10 for TAP. Follow up on day 42 if nothing has arrived. Escalation adds several more weeks.
What do I do if the airline doesn't reply?
Send one follow-up on day 42, then complain to the national enforcement body for the country you departed from. It's free. AESA wants the airline to have had 4 weeks, ENAC, ANAC, apf and Ireland 6, and the CAA, LBA, DGAC, ILT and the Nordics 8.
How long do I have to claim compensation?
Between 1 and 6 years from the flight date, set by the country whose courts would hear the claim. Belgium and Poland are 1 year, the Netherlands and Italy 2, the UK and Ireland 6. Miss it and the claim is gone however strong it was.
Can I claim for a flight from two years ago?
In the UK or Ireland, yes — the limitation period is 6 years. In the Netherlands or Italy a two-year-old flight is right at the edge, and in Belgium or Poland it has already expired. Check the country before you spend time on it.
How much compensation will I get?
Under EU261, €250 up to 1,500 km, €400 in the middle band and €600 over 3,500 km, per passenger. UK261 pays £220, £350 or £520. Four passengers in the top band is €2,400 on one claim, because the amount is per person.
Does complaining to the regulator cost anything?
No. All 18 national enforcement bodies handle passenger complaints for free. They're administrative rather than judicial, so they can press an airline without you going to court — and airlines that ignore passengers often settle once one is copied in.
Start with the free verdict
Route, date, delay and cause. The check names the article, the band and the amount before any payment screen — and it says no when the rules say no.
FlightOwe is an information service, not a law firm and not your legal representative. We tell you what the rules say and give you the letters — you file your own claim and keep everything you recover.