Start typing a city or airport code
Any currency — the reimbursement is a percentage of this, in the same currency
Compared to the original scheduled arrival time
In days — 14 or more days' notice means no compensation, regardless of anything else
This decides whether the airline can refuse to pay
Why does the reason matter?
Only matters if you departed from outside the EU/UK — skip the guesswork otherwise
Compensation
Select two airports
Estimate for reference only, not verified proof — check the sources below, and their access date, before relying on this for a claim or filing.
Flight delay compensation calculator
See what EU261 or UK261 actually owes you for a delayed, cancelled or overbooked flight — and whether the airline's excuse holds up.
Under EU261 and UK261, a flight delayed 3+ hours, cancelled with less than 14 days' notice, or an involuntary denied boarding entitles you to a fixed payout — €250/£220 under 1,500km, €400/£350 up to 3,500km, or €600/£520 beyond that — measured by great-circle distance. The airline only escapes paying for a delay or cancellation if it proves a genuinely extraordinary cause, like weather or a third-party strike; a technical fault usually does not count. Denied boarding has no such excuse at all.
Reviewed by RuleCost Editorial Team. Rules for 2026, updated 18 Sept 2026.
How to use it
- 1Type the departure and arrival airports — a city name or IATA code both work, and the calculator looks up the real great-circle distance between them.
- 2Say what happened — delayed, cancelled, or denied boarding — and how many hours late you actually arrived, or how much notice you got for a cancellation.
- 3Pick the reason the airline gave. Genuinely external causes (weather, security, a third-party strike) excuse the airline; most other reasons, including technical faults, don't.
- 4If you departed from outside the EU and UK, say where the airline is based — that's the only case where it changes whether either regulation applies at all.
How this calculator works
Three things decide the payout, checked in order.
Does a regulation cover the flight at all? EU261 covers any flight departing an EU, EEA (Iceland, Norway) or Swiss airport, on any airline — and separately covers a flight arriving in that zone from elsewhere, but only on an airline licensed there. UK261 works the same way for the UK. A flight can be covered by both, one, or neither.
Does the disruption clear the bar? A delay needs 3 or more hours at arrival. A cancellation needs less than 14 days’ notice. Denied boarding always clears it — there’s no threshold.
Does the airline have a valid excuse? For a delay or cancellation, a genuinely external cause — weather, security, air traffic control, a strike by someone other than the airline’s own staff — excuses the airline entirely. A technical fault, crew shortage, or the airline’s own staff striking does not. Denied boarding has no excuse available at all.
A worked example
Paris (CDG) to New York (JFK) — 5,834 km, a long-haul route — delayed for a technical fault (which doesn’t excuse the airline).
| Delay at arrival | EU261 payout |
|---|---|
| 2 hours | €0 — below the 3-hour minimum |
| 3.0–4.0 hours | €300 — the 50% long-haul reduction |
| 5 hours | €600 — full amount |
The reduction only exists in that narrow 3-to-4-hour window. One minute past 4 hours and the full €600 applies.
Distance bands
| Distance | EU261 | UK261 |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 1,500 km | €250 | £220 |
| 1,500–3,500 km | €400 | £350 |
| Over 3,500 km | €600 | £520 |
What doesn’t excuse the airline
Courts have repeatedly rejected these as “extraordinary circumstances,” even though airlines often cite them:
- A technical or mechanical fault, including one that only appears the day of the flight
- The airline’s own staff going on strike, including a wildcat strike its management didn’t call
- Crew being unavailable, over legal duty hours, or scheduled somewhere else
- A knock-on delay from the same aircraft’s earlier rotation, when that earlier delay was itself the airline’s own fault
What generally does
- Severe weather unsafe for flying
- A security threat, or an evacuation
- An air traffic control restriction or slot delay
- A strike by air traffic controllers, airport staff, or another third party
- Political instability at the destination
- A hidden manufacturing defect affecting a whole aircraft type — a narrow exception to the technical-fault rule, and not something this calculator tries to judge on its own
By airport and airline
See what a delay is worth from 31 major European airports and on 22 airlines, with real distances to the destinations people fly most.
Questions
- How is the distance measured?
- By the great-circle method — a straight line over the Earth's curved surface between the two airports, exactly as Article 7 of the regulation specifies. It's always shorter than the actual flight path, so it can only work in your favour compared to guessing from flight time.
- What if my flight only touches one of the EU or the UK?
- Departing an EU/EEA/Swiss airport puts you under EU261 no matter which airline you fly. Departing the UK puts you under UK261, same rule. Arriving in one of those zones from somewhere else only counts if the airline itself is licensed there — a US airline flying you into Paris from New York isn't covered, but Air France flying the same route is.
- Why doesn't a technical fault excuse the airline?
- Because the Court of Justice of the EU ruled (Wallentin-Hermann v Alitalia, 2008) that resolving a technical problem is "inherent in the normal exercise of an air carrier's activity" — it's an ordinary cost of running an airline, not an extraordinary one. There's a narrow exception for a hidden manufacturing defect affecting a whole fleet, which this calculator doesn't attempt to judge.
- My flight was delayed exactly 3 hours on a long-haul route — why is my payout cut in half?
- Article 7(2) lets the payout drop 50% when the actual delay doesn't exceed a distance-based threshold — 4 hours for the longest band. Because 3 hours is also the minimum delay that qualifies for anything at all, that razor-thin window (a delay of exactly 3.0 to 4.0 hours) is the one real case where the reduction bites for a pure delay claim. One minute past 4 hours and the full amount applies.
- Does denied boarding have the same excuses as a delay or cancellation?
- No. Article 4 of the regulation — denied boarding — has no extraordinary-circumstances defence written into it at all, unlike Article 5 for cancellation. If you were bumped from an oversold flight against your will, the airline owes the full distance-based amount immediately.