The reform, and what survived it
What the 2026 reform changed, and what it did not
Airlines lobbied to raise the threshold to four or six hours. Parliament voted 646 to 12 against them. Your three hours and your €600 survived.
On 7 July 2026 the European Parliament approved the first serious revision of air passenger rights in over twenty years, by 646 votes to 12. The airline industry had pushed hard to raise the compensation threshold from three hours to four or six, a change that would have stripped the right to a payout from most passengers who currently have one.
What stayed
The three hour threshold. The amounts of €250, €400 and €600. The rule that the cause decides whether they pay. If you are reading this because a flight went wrong, nothing about what you are owed has changed.
What changed
A closed list of extraordinary circumstances goes into the Regulation itself. Until now that phrase was defined case by case in court, which suited airlines: ambiguity is cheap for the party holding the money. Writing the list down removes a large part of the guesswork.
A single EU-wide deadline for bringing a claim replaces the national patchwork, which currently runs from one year in Belgium and Poland to six in the United Kingdom. Shorter deadlines in some countries are the price of consistency in the rest.
A personal item and a small cabin bag travel free of charge.
When it starts
The new rules are expected to apply from 2027. Until then the current Regulation applies in full. This site assesses your flight against the rules in force on the day you flew, and will keep both sets once the changeover date is published.