Downgraded to a lower class: how the 30, 50 and 75 % are worked out

If an operating air carrier places a passenger in a class lower than that for which the ticket was purchased, Article 10(2) requires it to reimburse, within seven days and by the means provided for in Article 7(3), 30 % of the price of the ticket for all flights of 1 500 kilometres or less, 50 % for all intra-Community flights of more than 1 500 kilometres and for all other flights between 1 500 and 3 500 kilometres, and 75 % for all flights not falling under the first two points. Flights between the European territory of the Member States and the French overseas departments are singled out: they are excepted from point (b) and expressly included in point (c).

Three things are easy to miss. The percentage is applied to the price of the ticket, not to the price difference between the class you booked and the class you were carried in – so the reimbursement may turn out to be either higher or lower than that difference. The reference to Article 7(3) concerns the means of payment: in cash, by electronic bank transfer, bank orders or bank cheques or, with the signed agreement of the passenger, in travel vouchers and/or other services. If you are moved up to a higher class instead, Article 10(1) provides that the carrier may not request any supplementary payment.

The fixed sums in Article 7 are a different matter. The Regulation ties them to denied boarding (Article 4(3)) and cancellation (Article 5(1)(c)), and in the Sturgeon judgment (Joined Cases C-402/07 and C-432/07) the Court of Justice of the EU treated a delay of three hours or more on arrival like a cancellation for the purposes of the right to compensation. Article 10(2), by contrast, refers only to Article 7(3) for how the money is to be paid. A downgrading in itself is therefore not the same thing as a fixed sum in euros. If the flight was also cancelled or heavily delayed, that question may need to be assessed on its own. Under Article 15, obligations vis-à-vis passengers may not be limited or waived, notably by a derogation or restrictive clause in the contract of carriage.

Only a change of cabin class – economy, business or first – counts as downgrading. According to the Commission's Interpretative Guidelines, the right does not cover advantages you paid extra for within the same class – through a more expensive fare or extras such as a particular seat or meals. If you stay in the same class but do not get what you paid for, you may instead be entitled to a reimbursement for it under the airline's terms and conditions or national law. It is also the class for which you purchased the ticket that counts, not an advantage obtained through a frequent flyer programme. A ticket issued under a frequent flyer programme is, however, covered by the Regulation (Article 3(3)).

The Regulation covers flights departing from an airport in the EU/EEA, and flights arriving in the EU/EEA from a country outside it where the operating airline is registered in the EU/EEA and you did not receive benefits or compensation and assistance in the country of departure (Article 3(1)). It does not apply to passengers travelling free of charge or at a reduced fare not available to the public (Article 3(3)).

On a ticket covering several flights, the crucial point is which price the percentage is applied to. The Court of Justice of the EU settled the question on 22 June 2016 in Case C-255/15, Steef Mennens v Emirates Direktion für Deutschland, following three questions referred by the Amtsgericht Düsseldorf in Germany.

The first point of the operative part: the price to be taken into account in determining the reimbursement where a passenger is downgraded on a flight is the price of the flight on which he was downgraded. In its reasoning (paragraph 29) the Court made clear that this is not the overall price of the transport to which the ticket entitles the passenger.

Where the price of the individual flight is not indicated on the ticket, the judgment states that the basis is instead the part of the price of the ticket corresponding to the quotient resulting from the distance of the flight in question and the total distance which the passenger is entitled to travel. That is an apportionment by distance – not an even split by the number of flights, and not a guess at what each flight is worth.

Regulation (EU) 2026/2202, which amends Regulation 261/2004, was published in the Official Journal of the EU on 2 October 2026 and applies from 23 October 2027 (Article 3). From then on it replaces Article 10: the carrier must, within 14 calendar days of the downgrading, provide an automatic reimbursement of at least 30, 50 or 75 % of the flight price, and the method from the Mennens judgment – the distance share where the flight price is not indicated on the ticket, and the exclusion of taxes and charges that do not depend on the class – is written into the Regulation itself. The new Article does not apply to ancillary services, such as specific seating or catering, which are independent from the class of transport and sold separately.

Until then, the rules described above apply, with seven days for the reimbursement.