Guide · Duty of care
The airline still owes you dinner and a bed
Compensation and care are two separate duties. The airline can escape the first with a weather report. The second — food, two calls, a room if you're kept overnight — it owes you regardless, and hardly anyone claims it.
The check names the article your claim rests on before any payment screen.
Airline duty of care is the right to be looked after during a disruption: meals proportionate to the wait, two phone calls, and — from 8 hours late or on any cancellation — a hotel with transfers. It covers flights leaving an EU, EEA or UK airport, and it survives a weather cancellation that pays no compensation.
Why weather kills the payout and not the sandwich
An extraordinary circumstance — a storm, an ATC or airport strike, a security incident, a medical emergency — removes the airline's duty to pay compensation. That defence lives in Art. 5(3), and where it genuinely applies, the €250 to €600 disappears.
It stops there. Art. 9 is a separate obligation and nothing in the extraordinary-circumstances defence touches it. Snow closed the runway? The airline still feeds you, still puts you up, still moves you to the hotel and back. The two duties are decided one at a time, which is the single most useful thing on this page.
Plenty of rejections are wrong about the first duty as well. A technical fault isn't extraordinary, and neither is a strike by the airline's own crew — what actually counts as an extraordinary circumstance goes through the case law that decides it.
A weather cancellation pays no compensation. Meals, calls and a hotel are still owed.
Gone on weather
The Art. 7 payment
€250, €400 or €600 per passenger, banded on distance and triggered at three hours late. A proven extraordinary circumstance removes it. The EU261 bands and the three-hour rule cover when it's owed.
Still owed
The Art. 9 care
Food, drinks, two messages out, a bed and the transfers to it. No distance bands, no cause test, no three-hour threshold on the meals. The airline pays or reimburses whatever the wait reasonably cost you.
The ladder: what's owed at each hour
Care arrives in stages, and each rung stays owed once you reach it.
| How long you're waiting | What the airline owes | What that looks like at the airport |
|---|---|---|
| From the start | Meals and refreshments proportionate to the wait | Vouchers handed out at the gate, or your own receipts reimbursed afterwards |
| From the start | Two phone calls, emails or faxes | Almost never offered. Claim the cost — roaming charges count |
| From 5 hours late | A full refund instead of travelling, if you choose not to fly | You give up the seat and the fare comes back to you |
| From 8 hours, or on any cancellation | Hotel accommodation, and the transfers to it and back | Only where you were kept overnight, not for a long daytime wait |
All four sit under Art. 9. Take the 5-hour refund and you've chosen not to travel, so book nothing else on that ticket first.
Which flights it covers
Any flight departing an EU or EEA airport, and any flight departing a UK airport, whoever operates it. Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein are in through the EEA; Switzerland is in through its air transport agreement. Departure is what matters here. A flight landing in Europe from somewhere else carries care rights only where the operating carrier is EU-licensed, and a purely domestic US delay carries none at all.
What "proportionate" means in practice
There's no published cap. "Proportionate to the waiting time" is the whole standard, so a two-hour wait justifies a coffee and a sandwich, and an overnight justifies dinner and breakfast. Airport prices are the reference point, because that's where you were. A bottle of water and a supermarket meal deal after nine hours is not proportionate, and saying so in the letter usually settles it. Alcohol gets refused. A three-course dinner with wine invites an argument you'll lose.
Receipts, and how to get them reimbursed
Care is enforced backwards. The airline hands out nothing at the gate, you buy your own dinner, and the claim is for the money you already spent. So the receipt is the claim.
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Keep every receipt, itemised and dated
Card statements alone get refused — they show an amount, not what you bought. Photograph the paper receipt at the table. Hotel bills need the date of stay on them, and the taxi or train fare to the hotel is part of the claim.
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Note what the airline said, and when
The gate announcement, the desk that told you to sort your own room, the time the crew went out of hours. A short timeline in the letter is worth more than an angry paragraph.
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Send one letter with the costs listed
Cite Art. 9, list each cost on its own line with a date, total it, and attach the receipts. Ask for a bank transfer in the same sentence, because otherwise a credit note is what arrives.
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Escalate free if they go quiet
Four to eight weeks depending on the country, then the national enforcement body — the CAA in the UK, the DGAC in France, AESA in Spain. Complaining costs nothing, and airlines that ignore passengers often settle once a regulator is copied in.
Care costs travel alongside a compensation claim rather than replacing it. If both are owed, they go in one letter and one envelope — the claim sequence with the dates that kill claims sets out the order.
The voucher problem
A voucher handed to you at the airport is fine — that's the airline providing care directly, which is exactly what it's supposed to do. A voucher offered instead of reimbursing money you already spent is a different thing, and you don't have to take it.
Wizz Air pushes its own credit rather than cash. Decline it in writing, in the same thread, before the acceptance is assumed. British Airways replies relatively promptly and then often offers vouchers; you're entitled to cash, and asking again with the account details attached is usually all it takes.
Airline credit expires, binds you to that carrier, and rarely covers the taxi. Reimbursement is money. They are not the same offer, whatever the email calls it.
The $5 expense pack, and when to skip it
Our kit is $19 for one disrupted flight and everyone on the booking. The expense pack is an add-on at $5: meal, hotel and transfer reimbursement letters, claimable even when compensation isn't. It starts unticked, and it stays unticked unless you tick it.
It's worth it for one case in particular — the overnight where the compensation verdict came back no. Everything else about that claim failed; the receipts in your pocket didn't. What's in the $19 kit and the $5 add-on is listed line by line on the pricing page.
Who shouldn't buy it
If you weren't out of pocket, skip it. Care rights reimburse costs you had, so a delay where the airline fed you at the gate and got you home the same night leaves nothing to reimburse and nothing for a letter to argue. Same if your flight left a US airport for another US airport: there's no Art. 9 behind it, only whatever that carrier's own commitment promises.
Questions people ask while they're stuck
My flight was cancelled for weather — do I get anything?
No compensation, but yes to care. Weather is an extraordinary circumstance under Art. 5(3), which removes the €250 to €600 payment and leaves Art. 9 untouched. Meals, two calls, and a hotel with transfers if you were kept overnight.
How much can I spend on food while I wait?
There's no fixed cap. The standard is "proportionate to the waiting time", judged against airport prices — a coffee and a sandwich for a short wait, dinner and breakfast for an overnight. Alcohol gets refused, and an expensive restaurant bill invites a fight.
Who pays for the hotel if I'm stuck overnight?
The airline does, from 8 hours late or on any cancellation that keeps you overnight, plus the transfers to the hotel and back. Book something reasonable near the airport if nobody at the desk arranges it, and keep the bill with the dates on it.
The airline gave us nothing at the airport. Can I still claim?
Yes. The duty doesn't vanish because the desk was unstaffed — it turns into a reimbursement claim. Buy what the wait reasonably needs, keep the itemised receipts, and claim the total afterwards citing Art. 9.
They offered a voucher instead of paying my receipts. Is that allowed?
You can refuse it. Cash reimbursement is what's owed for money you already spent, and credit is an offer rather than a settlement. Wizz Air pushes its own credit and British Airways often offers vouchers; declining in writing keeps the cash claim open.
Five hours in, can I give up and get my money back?
Yes, on a flight leaving an EU, EEA or UK airport. From 5 hours late you can decline to travel and take a full refund of the ticket. Decide before you buy another flight, because choosing the refund ends the airline's duty to carry you.
What receipts do I need to keep?
Itemised and dated ones. A card statement shows an amount but not what you bought, and that gets refused. Photograph paper receipts before they fade, keep the hotel bill with the date of stay, and hold on to the taxi or train fare to the hotel.
Does duty of care apply to a US flight?
Only if it left an EU, EEA or UK airport. A US domestic flight has no Art. 9 behind it — meals and hotels there depend on the airline's own published commitment, which the DOT does hold it to. Departing Europe on a US carrier, care is owed in full.
See which duties your flight triggers
Route, date, hours late, what the airline told you. The check names the article, the band and the amount — and says plainly when the answer is care only.
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.