Strikes, Delays and Cancellations: What You Are Actually Owed

On the day itself you do not care what a claim is called in a textbook. You care whether you are getting out today, who pays for the hotel, and whether any money comes back afterwards. The EU air passenger rights regulation answers those as three completely separate entitlements, and the commonest mistake is treating them as one: passengers who assume a strike means they get nothing routinely give up things they are still owed, while passengers who expect 600 euros for every delay end up disappointed. None of it hangs on a particular strike day either. Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 has applied since February 2005, the decisive rulings came between 2009 and 2021, and the reform agreed in summer 2026 leaves the amounts and the key threshold alone.

Which flights the Regulation covers

Article 3 covers every passenger departing from an airport in the territory of an EU member state, whichever airline they fly. It also covers flights from a third country into the EU, but only where the operating air carrier is an EU carrier: Frankfurt to Dubai on Emirates is covered, Dubai to Frankfurt on Emirates is not, the same route on Lufthansa is covered again. What matters throughout is the operating carrier, not the name on the booking confirmation — on a codeshare, liability sits with whoever actually flies the aircraft. Article 3(2) has teeth of its own: you need a confirmed reservation and must present yourself for check-in on time, and where no time was specified, no later than 45 minutes before the published departure time.

Three entitlements that have nothing to do with each other

Article 9 — the right to care. Meals and refreshments “in a reasonable relation to the waiting time”, hotel accommodation where an overnight stay becomes necessary, transport to it, plus two phone calls or emails. Free of charge.

Article 8 — reimbursement or re-routing. You choose between full reimbursement within seven days, re-routing to your final destination at the earliest opportunity, or re-routing at a later date that suits you. The choice is yours, not the airline’s.

Article 7 — compensation. The fixed cash sum most people mean when they say compensation.

And here is the sentence that gets lost every strike day: Article 5(3) excuses the carrier, in extraordinary circumstances, only from paying compensation “in accordance with Article 7”. Care and re-routing remain owed. An air traffic control strike may well cost you the 400 euros — but not the dinner, not the hotel room, and not the right to be put on another flight.

What the compensation is worth: 250, 400 or 600 euros

Article 7(1) sets exactly three tiers:

• EUR 250 for all flights of 1500 kilometres or less,
• EUR 400 for all intra-Community flights of more than 1500 kilometres and for all other flights between 1500 and 3500 kilometres,
• EUR 600 for all flights not falling under the first two.

Distance is measured by the great circle route method — straight-line, not the route actually flown. And what counts is the last destination at which you arrive late: on a through-booked Berlin–Frankfurt–New York itinerary, the relevant distance is the one to New York, not the leg where things went wrong. The sum is a flat rate; a 49-euro short-haul ticket earns the same 250 euros as a flexible fare. The airline may reduce it in one situation only: where its re-routing gets you in no more than two, three or four hours after the scheduled arrival, Article 7(2) allows a 50 per cent cut.

Three hours: the threshold that is not in the text

Read Article 6 looking for compensation for a delay and you will not find it. That article only covers care, graded by departure delay: from two hours on flights up to 1500 kilometres, from three hours on intra-Community flights over 1500 kilometres and other flights between 1500 and 3500 kilometres, from four hours on everything else; at five hours you may abandon the journey and have the fare refunded. Not a word about money on top.

The Court of Justice closed that gap on 19 November 2009 in joined cases C-402/07 and C-432/07 (Sturgeon v Condor, Böck and Lepuschitz v Air France): passengers who reach their final destination three hours or more after the scheduled arrival time may claim compensation under Article 7. What counts is the arrival delay, not a late departure — a flight that leaves ninety minutes late and makes some of it up en route triggers nothing. And arrival has a precise meaning: under the Germanwings judgment of 4 September 2014 (C-452/13) it is the moment at which at least one aircraft door is opened. Not touchdown, not reaching the stand.

When a strike costs you the compensation — and when it does not

Recital 14 lists, among the examples of extraordinary circumstances, “strikes that affect the operation of an operating air carrier”. The Grand Chamber took that apart on 23 March 2021 in case C-28/20 (Airhelp v SAS): the legislature meant strikes that are external to the carrier’s own activity, and industrial action by air traffic controllers or airport staff may therefore constitute an extraordinary circumstance (paragraph 42). A strike by the carrier’s own staff is an event internal to the undertaking — and remains so even where a trade union called it properly and observed every notice period.

Translated for German airports: a walkout by air traffic controllers, ground handling firms or airport security staff hits the airline from outside and can release it from paying. A strike by an airline’s own pilots, cabin crew or ground staff does not — there it stays at 250, 400 or 600 euros.

The Court went further in 2018. In its judgment of 17 April 2018 (joined cases C-195/17 and others, Krüsemann and Others), a large part of the flight crew called in sick spontaneously after a surprise restructuring announcement — a wildcat strike with no call from the staff representatives. That is not an extraordinary circumstance either, because the airline set off the trigger itself. The SAS judgment names one counter-example at paragraph 45: where a strike by a carrier’s own staff pursues demands only the public authorities can satisfy, it may still qualify. The burden of proof always sits with the airline, and Germany’s Luftfahrt-Bundesamt is blunt that each case is assessed individually.

Cancelled: what matters in the first half hour

Do not let a voucher be pressed on you. Under Article 7(3) reimbursement is made in money as a matter of course; a travel voucher is permitted only with your signed agreement.

Whether cash is owed on top depends on how much warning you had. Article 5(1)(c) rules compensation out where you were told at least two weeks ahead; between two weeks and seven days, the re-routing offered must depart no more than two hours early and land less than four hours late; with under seven days’ notice the window narrows to one hour early and less than two hours late. The burden of proving whether and when you were informed rests expressly with the carrier — app screenshots and email timestamps are worth more than your memory of it.

Before choosing between waiting and switching airports, do the arithmetic: how far is the alternative, and how long is the drive? Routefare sets out distances, drive times and indicative taxi fares from the major German airports. Do not rebook unilaterally before the airline has had its chance to offer you something. And if its re-routing lands you at a different airport from the one booked, Article 8(3) applies: the carrier bears the cost of getting you on to the original destination airport. You will usually still have to pay first, so keep the receipt and get a rough sense beforehand of what a run to or from the airport typically costs.

Care: what the airline owes you even in a strike

Because Article 9 survives the strike excuse intact, it is the most valuable part of the Regulation in practice. The catch is logistical, not legal: on a strike day the airport hotels are full long before the last announcement. The Luftfahrt-Bundesamt advises passengers who had to look after themselves to keep receipts and reclaim the costs afterwards. If you are stranded at BER, it helps to know which hotels you can genuinely reach on foot from the terminal.

Two cost blocks Article 9 pointedly does not cover: your parking ticket and your hire car. The car sits in the car park while you are stuck, and the extra days are yours to pay — worth knowing in advance which BER parking areas work at which daily rate. When a delay turns into half a day, terminal knowledge beats legal texts: see Long layover at Frankfurt Airport. And if the rebooking only bites in the evening, an unplanned day between the Römer, the Zeil and the museum embankment beats a bench at the gate.

The gap almost nobody knows: a strike at the security checkpoint

This one appears in no claims-company guide. The Luftfahrt-Bundesamt states explicitly that the Regulation does not apply where the flight operates without disruption and passengers miss it because of strike-related delays at the security checkpoint: screening is the responsibility of the federal police and the firms it contracts, and the airline has no influence over it.

So if your flight leaves on time while you are in a two-hour queue caused by a walkout, you have neither a compensation claim nor a right to care. The only protection is a time buffer — how screening works and what queue times are realistic is covered under Airport security checkpoint.

From claim to money: deadlines, ADR and limitation

Claims go directly to the operating carrier, in writing, with booking reference, flight number and date. If the airline does not respond within two months or refuses, the Luftfahrt-Bundesamt points to two routes that cost the passenger nothing: the Schlichtungsstelle Reise & Verkehr e. V., which traded as söp until 2026, or — where the airline has not signed up to that private scheme — the official aviation conciliation body at the Bundesamt für Justiz. Consumer claims up to 5,000 euros qualify.

The Luftfahrt-Bundesamt itself is the national enforcement and complaints body and can open administrative fine proceedings against an airline, but expressly cannot enforce your individual civil claim. You have more time than the claims portals imply: the standard limitation period is three years under section 195 of the German Civil Code, and under section 199(1) it only starts running at the end of the year in which the claim arose — a flight in March 2026 is time-barred on 31 December 2029.

What the 2026 reform changes — and what applies in the UK

After more than two decades the Regulation has been overhauled: Parliament adopted the joint text on 7 July 2026, and the Council signed it off shortly afterwards. The most fought-over numbers survive unchanged — 250, 400 and 600 euros, and the three-hour threshold, despite the Council having pushed for four to six hours. What is new is mostly procedure: an explicit, open list of extraordinary circumstances which, per Parliament’s own announcement, names strikes by airports, air navigation and ground handling service providers, nine months for passengers to claim and 30 days for airlines to pay. It applies only a year after entry into force, so your next flight is still governed by the 2004 text and the case law on it (as of September 2026).

The United Kingdom has run the Regulation as its own law since Brexit — same architecture, sterling amounts: £220 up to 1500 kilometres, £350 between 1500 and 3500 kilometres and £520 for everything else, substituted from 31 December 2020. It covers departures from UK airports and flights into the UK where the operating carrier is a UK or an EU airline.

On the day, all of that condenses into a short sequence. Work out who is striking — the airline itself, or someone outside it. Insist on care and on your Article 8 choice at the desk regardless of the answer to that first question. Collect receipts, note the arrival time, keep the emails. Then claim the compensation calmly from home, with three years in hand rather than under the pressure of a board on which everything has just turned red.