New EU flight delay rules: what changes from 23 October 2027

The regulation is based on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee on 15 June 2026. It was signed on 16 September 2026 and published in the Official Journal on 2 October 2026.

Entry into force falls on the twentieth day after publication, which is 22 October 2026. Entry into force is not the same as application, though. Article 3 states expressly that the regulation applies from 23 October 2027, and only from that date do the new rules govern the relationship between passengers and airlines.

Up to and including 22 October 2027, Regulation 261/2004 continues to apply in its current form, together with the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union.

The right to compensation for long delays is now written into the regulation itself. Under Article 6(4), passengers who reach their final destination more than three hours late can request compensation. Today the three-hour threshold comes from the Court of Justice's Sturgeon judgment (Cases C-402/07 and C-432/07), to which recital 17 of the new regulation expressly refers. The judgment speaks of three hours or more, whereas the new text requires a delay exceeding three hours – a marginal difference that only matters for someone who arrives exactly three hours late.

The amounts in Article 7(1) are the same as today: EUR 250 for journeys of 1,500 km or less, EUR 400 for intra-EU journeys longer than that and for other journeys between 1,500 and 3,500 km, and EUR 600 for all other journeys.

As today, EUR 600 is a ceiling, not a promise. Under the new Article 7(2), the airline may halve the top amount if arrival is no more than four hours late and the passenger was either offered rerouting on a later flight or arrived late on the journey originally booked. And if the disruption was caused by extraordinary circumstances that could not have been avoided, no compensation is payable at all.

From 23 October 2027, the 50 % reduction in Article 7(2) applies only to the top amount – today the lower amounts can also be halved in the case of rerouting. And Article 7(3) introduces a new reduction: if rerouting after a cancellation departs more than one hour before the original flight and the passenger takes that flight, compensation may be reduced by 50 % if departure is brought forward by less than two hours and by 25 % if it is brought forward by two hours or more but less than three hours.

Under Article 7(9), a request for compensation must be submitted within nine months of the actual date of departure indicated on the ticket. The airline must acknowledge receipt immediately and, within 30 calendar days, either pay or explain why it is not paying.

If the airline relies on an extraordinary circumstance, it must state which point of the Annex it invokes. If the event is not on the list, it must say what the event was and why it should count as extraordinary – and in both cases explain how the conditions on causal link and reasonable measures are met.

The same provision allows the airline to ask for evidence of a valid mandate where a request is submitted by a third party on a passenger's behalf.

The current regulation has no deadline of its own. How long a claim can be pursued is instead governed by national limitation rules, as the Court of Justice held in Case C-139/11 (Cuadrench Moré). The new deadline in Article 7(9) concerns the request to the airline; the regulation says nothing about how long a passenger then has to bring court proceedings for compensation.

An airline does not have to pay compensation if the disruption was caused by extraordinary circumstances that could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. What counts as extraordinary has so far been shaped by the case law of the Court of Justice. The amended regulation adds an Annex with a non-exhaustive list of such circumstances (Article 6c(1)).

The list includes, among other things, weather and natural disasters incompatible with the safe operation of the flight, war, serious cross-border threats to health, unruly passengers, certain medical emergencies, sabotage and terrorism, hidden manufacturing or design defects revealed by the manufacturer or a competent authority, airspace closures and capacity restrictions beyond the airline's control, unscheduled airport closures, damage to the aircraft caused by third parties, animals or foreign objects, and operational shortcomings of airport essential service providers that the airline was unable to control.

Two caveats matter. Being on the list is not enough on its own: under Article 6c(2) the airline must prove a direct causal link between the event and the disruption, and that the disruption could not have been avoided even with all reasonable measures. According to recital 5, the event must also meet every element of the description in the list. And because the list is not exhaustive, an event that is not on it is assessed case by case.

The Annex mentions two kinds of strike. Point 3(g) covers strikes at essential service providers – such as the airport managing body, air navigation service providers and groundhandling providers that airlines do not effectively choose – provided the strike is beyond the actual control of the airline or its group.

Point 3(h) covers strikes at the operating airline itself. These count as extraordinary only if they originate from demands that only public authorities can satisfy and are therefore beyond the actual control of the airline or its group.

That is close to the current legal position. In Case C-28/20 (Airhelp v SAS, 23 March 2021), the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice held that a strike called by a trade union of the airline's own staff in compliance with national law (including the notice period), intended to assert the workers' demands and followed by staff essential for operating a flight, is not an extraordinary circumstance. In the same judgment, the Court said such a strike is capable of being one if it originates from demands which only the public authorities can satisfy (paragraph 45).

The difference is that the Court said such a strike is capable of constituting an extraordinary circumstance, whereas the Annex says it shall be considered one. The Annex also extends this to the group of companies to which the airline belongs.

An ordinary strike by an airline's own staff – over pay or working conditions, for example – is therefore not on the list. How courts will assess such strikes after 23 October 2027 has not yet been tested.

The new Article 11a requires airlines to let passengers bring a personal item into the cabin at no extra cost. Under the definition in Article 2, that is a piece of unchecked baggage that complies with security and safety requirements and either measures no more than 40 × 30 × 15 cm or fits under the seat in front. If specific reasons, such as safety or capacity, mean it has to go in the hold after all, that must be at no further cost (Article 11a(2)).

The regulation does not, however, make larger hand luggage, such as a cabin bag, free. Airlines must allow it subject to the capacity of the aircraft cabin and show the fare including hand baggage by default before any booking starts, but they may still offer fares to passengers who voluntarily choose to travel without it.

The idea is not entirely new. In 2014 the Court of Justice said, in the grounds of its judgment in Case C-487/12 (Vueling, paragraph 40), that hand baggage meeting reasonable requirements on weight and dimensions and complying with security requirements cannot, in principle, be made subject to a price supplement. The judgment spoke of hand baggage in general. Recital 42 of the new regulation uses the judgment's wording – “a necessary aspect of the carriage of passengers” – for the personal item. What is added is an express prohibition in the legislation, with a stated size, for the personal item specifically.