Delayed flight
Försenat flyg - Engelska
If your flight is delayed, you may be entitled to compensation and help from the airline. On this page, you can find information on how much compensation you can demand and what to do if the airline denies your demands.
Cooperation: This page is part of the European Union's Consumer Program (2014-2020).
Translated page: This text has been translated from Swedish. The text and appearance of the page may look different from the original page.
Work out what you can demand and send the demand to the airline
With our free tool, the Flight Calculator, you enter information about your air travel to find out what rights you have. The Flight Calculator also guides you further to the website of the airline in question so that you can send in your demand through the website.
The Flight Calculator is in both Swedish and English.
If you cannot send in your demands over the airline’s website, you can use the EU’s complaint form and send it by email to the airline. The form is available in Swedish and English.
Use the English form if the airline is not Swedish or if the event occurred in a country other than Sweden. Save a copy of the form you send to the airline. If you wan to demand compensation for expenses you have had, it is important that you send in documentation, such as receipts, that shows what expenses are involved.
Waiting for a response from the airline
Once you have sent your complaint in to the airline, you need to wait for an answer from the airline. It usually takes a few weeks to get an answer, but if you have waited more than six weeks without getting an answer, you can take the next step with your case.
Special rules for cancelled flights within the EU
Within the EU, there are special rules fro flights that may give you the right to help when the flight is delayed or cancelled. You may also be entitled to compensation in the form of a standard amount in euros.
The EU rules apply in the following cases:
When you are flying from an airport within the EU.
When you are flying from an airport outside the EU to an airport within the EU with an airline registered in the EU.
These rules also apply to Norway, Iceland and Switzerland in the same way as for all of the EU countries.
If your flight is not covered by the EU rules, you do not have a right to compensation in the form of a standard amount. However, you may be entitled to expenses you are forced to pay.
Your right to financial compensation
There are two kinds of financial compensation you may be entitled to when your flight is delayed. One is called compensation and the other is called damages.
Compensation
You may be entitled to compensation in the form of a standard amount in euros if your air travel is covered by the EU rules. This compensation varies between EUR 250 to EUR 600. The compensation is intended to compensate you for time you lost because of the delay. In order to be entitled to compensation, the delay must be three hours or longer. How much you are entitled to also depends on the length of the flight:
EUR 250 for all flights of no more than 1,500 km.
EUR 400 for all flights within the EU longer than 1,500 km and for all other flights that are between 1,500 km and 3,500 km long.
EUR 600 for all other flights covered by the EU rules
The length of the flight is calculated from the departure point to the final destination. This applies regardless of whether and where you make connections and where on the route the delay occurred.
The compensation can be cut in half for longer flights
For longer flights, meaning flights longer than 3,500 km, the standard amount you are entitled to is cut in half depending on how long the delay is.
Damages
Regardless of whether your flight is covered by the EU’s rules or not, you may be entitled to compensation for expenses you have because of the delayed flight. This may involve, for example, that you had to buy food at the airport, missed a hotel night or lost work income. You must be able to prove what expenses you had, and they must be tied to the delay. Save all of the receipts for your expenses as evidence.
You cannot receive financial compensation for mental suffering, the trouble of having to wait, feelings of discomfort or similar difficulties due to the delayed flight.
Your right to support and help from the airline
If your flight is delayed by at least two hours, and the flight is covered by the EU rules, the airline must offer you free food and drink in reasonable proportion to the wait. The airline must also inform you of what rights you have.
Right to refund upon a delay of more than five hours
If your flight departs to the final destination more than five hours late, the airline must offer you a refund for the part of the ticket you have not been able to use.
When you are to receive a refund, the airline is obliged to pay back your ticket costs within seven days. A refund shall be made in cash, with an electronic bank transfer, bank giro transfer or check. If you agree to it, a refund can be made through vouchers or in another manner.
When you accept a refund, you cannot at the same time require the airline to fly you on to your destination free of charge.
In these cases, you are not entitled to financial compensation
The airline is not obliged to pay financial compensation in the form of the standard amounts in euros if the delayed or cancelled flight is due to extraordinary circumstances. Extraordinary circumstances mean events that are beyond the airline’s control that cannot be avoided even if all reasonable steps are taken.
There are no defined situations that are always considered to be extraordinary. This must be assessed case by case. But there are examples of circumstances that may be extraordinary:
Political instability
Weather conditions that make it impossible to fly
Security risks
Unforeseen deficiencies in flight safety
When a strike happens that affects the operations of the airline.
Technical faults on the aircraft are usually seen as extraordinary events.
It is up to the airline to prove that the delayed or cancelled flight was due to an extraordinary circumstance. The airline must also be able to prove that they did everything they could to avoid the flight being delayed or cancelled.
If the airline refers to extraordinary circumstances/force majeure
Sometimes, airlines refer to extraordinary circumstances and therefore do not pay out any compensation. The airline first makes its own assessment of what happened and decides if they will pay out compensation or not. If you do not agree with the airline’s assessment, there are places you can forward your case to in order to get a free and impartial assessment.
How to get an assessment of your case
The body that should review your case depends, among other things, on the kind of compensation you are demanding and the country in which the problem with the flight arose. Contact us and we will provide information on where you can turn to.
Source: KonsumentverketECC Sverige
This page was funded by the European Union's Consumer Programme (2014-2020). ECC Sweden is a part of the European Consumer Centres Network, but also a part of the Swedish Consumer Agency’s information service Hello Consumer. At ECC Sweden, consumers who made cross-border purchases within the EU, Iceland, Norway or the UK can get free help and advice from our legal advisers.