The European Parliament has voted overwhelmingly to preserve the existing three-hour threshold for flight delay compensation.
It rejected proposals from European Union member states that would have extended the limit and potentially reduced payouts.
In a plenary session held in Strasbourg yesterday, MEPs adopted the position on the long-awaited revision of EU air passenger rights rules by 632 votes in favour, 15 against, and nine abstentions.
The vote marks a firm rejection of the European Council’s June 2025 standpoint. The Council represents national capital.
Under the existing EU Regulation, passengers can claim compensation when flights are delayed by three hours or more, for cancellations, or denied boarding, with payouts ranging from €250 for short-haul trips to €600 for long-haul journeys.
The proposal backed by the the European Council would raise the minimum delay for compensation to four hours and up to six hours for long-haul flights. It would also reduce payouts for many routes, including cutting long-haul compensation from €600 to €500.
MEPs insisted on retaining this threshold, along with existing compensation levels, which they propose adjusting slightly to between €300 and €600.
The EP also backed several consumer-friendly amendments, including simpler and faster reimbursement procedures, mandatory pre-filled claim forms and the right to one free item of cabin luggage plus a personal item.
Additionally, MEPs want to eliminate the extra costs that travellers occasionally have to pay to check onto their aircraft or fix passenger name inaccuracies. They also say that passengers should be able to select between paper and digital boarding permits.
These measures aim to address persistent issues such as opaque ancillary charges and delays in refunds.
The decision follows more than a decade of stalled negotiations on updating the 2004 framework, which has faced criticism from airlines for its strict liability rules but strong support from consumer groups for protecting travellers against travel disruptions.
MEPs described the three-hour limit and associated safeguards as “red lines”, emphasising that the revisions should strengthen rather than weaken passenger protections.
The vote sets up three-way negotiations between EP, the European Council, and the European Commission to reconcile the differing positions.
The original rules have been in force since 2004 and were shaped by court interpretations, including the landmark Sturgeon ruling that extended compensation rights to long delays.
In June last year, the EP’s European People’s Party (EPP) came out against the potential watering down of existing compensation rights.
Reacting to the vote, MEP Andrey Novakov, the EP’s chief negotiator on air passenger rights, said: “For a guy from Bulgaria, it’s a big deal to rally 632 Members of the European Parliament in support of passenger rights, something I’ve been working on for over a year.
“Tough negotiations with transport ministers lie ahead. They won’t be easy, but if they were, they wouldn’t have fallen to us.”
His Socialist counterpart, Matteo Ricci, said about the vote: “This is good news but certainly not enough as long as the Council clearly prioritises the interests of multimillion-euro airline companies over that of their passengers.”
ECR shadow rapporteur Kosma Złotowski pointed out that the EC’s attempts to weaken passenger rights were driven by rising airline costs linked to Green Deal policies and that travellers must not be made to pay the price for policy-induced burdens on the aviation sector.
Parliament wants to maintain a traveller’s right to compensation for a three-hour delay and is also pushing for simpler reimbursement procedures and free cabin luggage.
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