Your flight was 3 hours late: that is 250, 400 or 600 euros

Two hundred and fifty euros for a 39-euro Madrid to Brussels ticket, and two hundred and fifty for the person in the next seat, who paid 480 for the same flight. If the plane lands three hours late or more, the compensation is identical for both: what sets it is the distance flown and never the price paid. These are the three figures in Article 7 of Regulation (EC) 261/2004, the European air passenger rights law, in force since February 2005: 250 euros up to 1,500 kilometres, 400 on flights within the European Union of more than 1,500 and on any other between 1,500 and 3,500, and 600 beyond 3,500 outside the Union.

Almost everybody believes the opposite, and the next two mistakes follow from it: that the voucher handed over at the desk is the compensation, and that the sentence "it was a technical fault, it is not on us" settles the matter. What is being paid for here is the time that was taken from you, at a fixed rate, which is why it does not shrink when the ticket is cheap.

Here is what the rule actually says, in order, with what you have to do at each point.

1. Count the hours on arrival, not on departure. The right to compensation for delay is not written into the regulation: the Court of Justice of the European Union established it in 2009, in the Sturgeon case (C-402/07), and confirmed it in 2012. The rule is three hours or more of delay when the door opens at the destination. A plane that leaves four hours late and makes up two in the air gives you nothing. One that leaves on time and then circles the airport for three hours does. Write down the real arrival time.

2. Measure the distance, not the price. Look up the kilometres between the two airports (in a straight line, not the route the plane flies) and place yourself in one of the three bands above. Madrid to Barcelona is 483 kilometres: 250 euros. Madrid to Stockholm, 2,594 within the Union: 400. Madrid to Bogotá, 8,033 outside it: 600.

3. A voucher is not the compensation. Article 7.3 says it is paid in cash, by bank transfer or by cheque, and that it can only be paid in travel vouchers if the passenger agrees in writing and with a signature. That 100-euro voucher "for the inconvenience" they offer you at the desk, signed without reading, can close a 400-euro claim. Do not sign anything at the airport that mentions compensation.

4. "Extraordinary circumstance" does not mean "something that wasn't our fault". Article 5.3 excuses the airline if the delay comes from something outside its normal activity that it could not have avoided: a storm, closed airspace, air traffic control on strike, a bird in the engine, a medical emergency on board. But an ordinary technical fault, the kind that shows up in maintenance, is not extraordinary: the Court of Justice decided that in 2008, in the Wallentin-Hermann case (C-549/07). And a strike by the airline's own staff is not extraordinary either: neither a wildcat one, called without a union behind it (case C-195/17, 2018), nor one properly called by a union of the airline's own workforce (case C-28/20, 2021). A strike from outside the airline, such as one by air traffic controllers, is a different matter and does excuse them. If they tell you "technical fault", ask for it in writing: you have just been handed your best piece of evidence.

5. Food and hotel are separate and start much earlier. Article 9 obliges the airline to give you drinks, meals, two phone calls or messages and, if you have to stay the night, a hotel and transport. It kicks in after two hours of delay on flights up to 1,500 kilometres, after three on flights over 1,500 within the Union and on those between 1,500 and 3,500, and after four on the rest. You should not have to ask twice: if they hand out nothing, buy it yourself, keep the receipt and claim it afterwards. And this is owed even when the delay is caused by a storm.

6. After five hours you can choose not to fly. Article 8 lets you give up the journey and ask for a full refund of the ticket within seven days, plus a flight back to your point of departure if you were already mid-route. It is a decision taken at the airport, not later: if you board the plane, you have accepted the transport.

7. If they rebook you quickly, they can pay you half. Article 7.2 allows the compensation to be cut by 50 % when the airline puts you on another flight arriving less than two hours later than scheduled (up to 1,500 kilometres), less than three (over 1,500 within the Union and 1,500 to 3,500) or less than four (the rest). Outside those margins, you get the full amount.

One warning about scope, because it decides whether you have a right at all: the regulation covers every flight leaving an airport in the European Union, whoever is flying it, and flights arriving into the Union from outside only if a Union airline operates them. A New York to Madrid flight with a United States carrier falls outside; the same route in reverse falls inside.

And now what to do, in the order that works. Before you leave the airport, photograph the board with the real time, keep your boarding pass and ask at the desk for the reason for the delay in writing, even if it is a hand-stamped slip. At home, send the claim through the airline's own form — not by telephone — with the flight number, the date, the arrival time and the amount you are asking for, and keep the acknowledgement. If after a month there is no reply, or the reply is no, the claim goes to the Spanish Aviation Safety Agency, which is free and needs no lawyer. It takes time, but it does not expire in a fortnight: in Spain the general five-year limit of Article 1964 of the Civil Code applies. That flight from last summer can still be collected.