Cancelled flight rights: notice, rerouting and refunds

A cancellation triggers three separate rights that people routinely confuse with each other: a choice between a refund and rerouting, care while you wait, and, sometimes, fixed compensation. The first two apply whatever the reason for the cancellation. The third depends almost entirely on how much notice you were given and what the airline offered instead. This guide takes each in turn, with the exact notice bands and worked examples.

What counts as a cancellation

A cancellation is the non-operation of a flight that was previously planned and on which at least one seat was reserved. In practice the label the airline uses is not decisive. A flight that leaves fourteen hours late under the same flight number is treated in law as a delay, and a flight that is renumbered, rerouted through a different airport or merged into another service is very often a cancellation whatever the app says. If you are unsure, work out both figures and claim on the basis that gives you more, explaining why.

Two rights that apply no matter what

Article 8 gives you a choice, exercisable by you rather than by the airline. You may take a refund of the ticket cost for the parts of the journey not made, paid within seven days, together with a return flight to your first point of departure at the earliest opportunity if the trip has been rendered pointless. Or you may take rerouting to your final destination at the earliest opportunity, under comparable transport conditions. Or you may take rerouting at a later date of your choosing, subject to seat availability.

Article 9 gives you care - meals and refreshments in reasonable relation to the waiting time, two communications, and hotel accommodation with transfers where an overnight stay becomes necessary. Both articles are in the text on EUR-Lex, and the assimilated UK version is on legislation.gov.uk. Neither is affected by the reason for the cancellation, so a storm that wipes out your flight still leaves the airline owing you a bed for the night. That point is expanded in duty of care.

Take the choice seriously rather than accepting the first rebooking pushed at you. If you take the refund, the airline's duty to reroute you ends and you are buying your own replacement ticket at whatever the market charges. If you take rerouting, you keep the airline on the hook for getting you there and for feeding and housing you until it does.

The notice rule

Compensation for a cancellation is decided by a sliding scale of notice, measured from when the airline told you to the scheduled departure time.

Three details decide most disputes. First, both halves of each exemption have to be satisfied - a replacement that departs on time but lands five hours late does not exempt the airline in the 7 to 14 day band. Second, the exemptions only apply if the airline actually offered you rerouting. Simply cancelling and refunding you does not buy the exemption. Third, the 14-day cut-off is a hard line rather than a sliding one, which is why the date you were notified is worth screenshotting. See proving your claim for what to keep.

The amount, and the half rate

Where compensation is due, the amount follows the same distance bands as a delay claim.

The right-hand column is the Article 7(2) reduction. On a cancellation it works differently from a delay, where the half rate only ever touches flights over 3,500 km. Here it applies across all three bands, measured on how far the rerouted arrival slipped past the original scheduled arrival. Which currency applies is a question of coverage, set out in UK261 vs EU261. The compensation checker applies the band and the reduction for you.

Worked examples

Ten days' notice, short haul. A family of three booked Edinburgh to Palma, about 1,900 km. The airline cancels ten days out and offers a flight the same day leaving an hour earlier and arriving three hours and thirty minutes later. That falls inside the 7 to 14 day exemption on both limbs, so no compensation is due. The family still chooses between the alternative and a refund, and still gets care on the day.

Four days' notice, long haul. Two passengers booked Gatwick to Barbados, over 3,500 km. The airline cancels four days out and rebooks them on a service two days later. That is nowhere near the under-7-day exemption, and the arrival slipped far more than four hours, so the full amount is due: £520 each, £1,040 in total, plus a hotel and meals for the intervening nights if they were away from home.

Same-day cancellation, quick rebooking. One passenger booked Bristol to Dublin, under 1,500 km. The flight is cancelled that morning and the airline puts them on a service arriving one hour and forty minutes late. Compensation is due because there was no notice, but the rerouting arrived inside the two-hour window, so the half rate applies and the claim is £110.

Extraordinary circumstances

Even where the notice rules are satisfied, the airline can refuse compensation if the cancellation was caused by extraordinary circumstances that could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. Severe weather, airspace closures and security incidents usually qualify. Routine technical faults, the airline's own staff striking and crew illness do not, and refusals leaning on those are worth challenging - see extraordinary circumstances explained. Remember that the defence removes the compensation and nothing else. The refund, the rerouting and the care all survive.

Putting the claim together

Send one message covering everything rather than opening separate cases. State the flight and booking reference, the date and time you were notified of the cancellation, what the airline offered, the departure and arrival times of the replacement against the original, and the figure you are claiming, multiplied by the number of paying passengers. Attach receipts for any care you had to buy yourself. The full template and the follow-up sequence are in claiming it yourself, for free, and if the airline refuses or goes quiet for eight weeks, the route onward is in the escalation ladder.