EU Reg 261 Airline Care And Assistance While You’re At The Airport

Article 9 of EU Reg 261 states that airlines must provide passengers with a level of “care and assistance” if their flight is delayed beyond a certain number of hours, regardless of whether the delay or cancellation is the airline’s responsibility or not.

Airline passengers become eligible for “care and assistance” if their flight is delayed for at least 2 hours (for flights under 1,500km), at least 3 hours (for flights between 1,500km and 3,500km), or at least 4 hours (for flights over 3,500km).

Regardless of the reason for the delay, the airline must provide passengers with:

• Food and drink in reasonable relation to waiting time
• Free hotel accommodation when a stay of one night or more is necessary
• Free transport between the airport and the hotel
• Two free telephone calls, emails, or fax messages

The airline should cover all these costs during the delay as part of their ‘care and assistance’ obligations. This right applies to delays, even if caused by what the regulation calls an “extraordinary circumstance.”

However, we see cases where passengers have had to use their money to buy food and drink or get taxis to and from the airports. As such we have created a free downloadable “care and assistance” expenses template letter for you to send to the airline to claim any expensed you may be owed.

If you wish to claim these expenses back from the airline then you may find it useful to download and send off our template letter of claim.

For older versions of Word then please use this file.