Delays are cheaper for airlines

As summer approaches, air passenger protection regulations are taking a major hit. Until now—and this will continue this summer—compensation was between €250 and €600 for flight delays of more than three hours, as well as missed stopovers or cancellations notified with less than seven days' notice.

However, The European Commission has decided to renew this regulation by 2026, significantly reducing compensation. With the new regulation, the compensation amounts remain the same, but the minimum delay time for compensation to apply increases: it will go from 3 hours to 4 or 6 hours, depending on the flight distance. In practice, this will mean 60% fewer passengers eligible for compensation once the regulation comes into force.

Furthermore, the new regulations also allow for a charge for carry-on baggage, an aspect that until now was not fully regulated. From now on, we will be able to bring a small personal bag into the cabin free of charge, but it will be up to each airline to decide whether or not to charge for carry-on baggage. In fact, this charge is already being applied across the board.

With these changes, rather than protecting passengers, it seems that they are protecting the airlines, which will have greater flexibility to avoid compensation. In any case, if we experience an incident of this type while on vacation, we can still file a claim through several channels, up to five years after the incident. That is, if it happened two years ago, we still have time. Airlines' websites provide a simple form for filing a claim. If the response is negative, the case can be escalated to the AESA (State Aviation Safety Agency). And if we don't feel like doing it ourselves, there are many companies that can handle the claim for a fee.