Air traffic control delays and strikes: is compensation due?

Can I get compensation for an ATC delay?

Usually not the fixed amount — and everything else stays. Four separate rights are in play, and an air-traffic-control cause switches off only one of them:

Articles 8 and 9 contain no extraordinary-circumstances clause, so an ATC strike never removes the refund, the re-routing or the care. The rest of this page is about the one right that is in doubt: when the ATC label holds and when it does not.

Why ATC problems count as extraordinary

Regulation 261/2004 names this case itself. Recital 15 says extraordinary circumstances “should be deemed to exist where the impact of an air traffic management decision in relation to a particular aircraft on a particular day gives rise to a long delay, an overnight delay, or the cancellation of one or more flights by that aircraft, even though all reasonable measures had been taken by the air carrier concerned to avoid the delays or cancellations”. The European Commission’s 2016 guidelines and the UK Civil Aviation Authority’s list of extraordinary circumstances both follow it. Three words in that recital do the work: particular aircraft, particular day. A general restriction somewhere in Europe is not enough; the airline has to connect the ATC decision to your flight.

The three kinds of ATC disruption

Flow restrictions. When a sector, an airport or a control centre cannot handle the scheduled traffic — thunderstorms over the centre, staffing at the unit, a military exercise, a capacity cap — the network manager issues a regulation and affected flights receive a calculated take-off time (a “slot” or CTOT). Your aircraft waits at the gate or on the apron with the crew on board. If that slot delay pushed your arrival past 3 hours, the cause is extraordinary for that flight.

ATC strikes. French, Italian, Greek and Belgian controller strikes are recurring. The authority typically asks airlines to cancel a share of flights the day before, and overflights are rerouted or delayed. Cancellations and delays caused this way are extraordinary. Two points still matter: if the airline cancelled 14 days or more ahead, no compensation was due anyway, whatever the cause; and a strike announced weeks in advance gives the airline time to plan re-routing, which it must offer. Strikes by the airline’s own staff are a different case altogether — the strike guide covers who is striking and why it decides the claim.

System failures. The failure of the UK flight-planning system on 28 August 2023 grounded or cancelled well over a thousand flights in a day. The CAA treated the cause as outside the airlines’ control, so no fixed compensation; its later review concentrated on whether airlines met their care and re-routing duties, which never lapsed. The same reasoning applies to radar or data-link outages at a control centre.

Cancelled because of air traffic control

A cancellation on the day, at the request of the air-navigation authority or under a flow regulation that would have made the flight impossible, is extraordinary for that flight. What changes is the choice you must be given: a refund of the unused ticket within 7 days, or re-routing to your destination at the earliest opportunity — including on another airline or by rail where that is sooner than the airline’s own next seat — plus meals and a hotel while you wait. An airline that only offers “rebook yourself on our next available flight in three days” and nothing else is in breach even though the cause was ATC.

Two cancellations look like ATC cancellations and are not. A flight thinned out of the schedule days before a strike, without re-routing being offered, may not have been caused by the strike at all — the airline chose which flights to drop. And a flight cancelled the morning after a restriction ended is a recovery decision: the airline must show it could not have positioned an aircraft and crew in time.

Only part of the delay was ATC

The airline must account for the whole delay, not just the part it can document. A 40-minute slot delay does not explain an arrival 3 h 40 late; the remaining three hours came from somewhere — a late inbound aircraft, a crew that reached its duty limit, a slow turnaround — and those are the airline’s operations. The Court of Justice settled this in Pešková (C-315/15): where a delay has an extraordinary cause and an ordinary one, the part attributable to the extraordinary event is deducted from the total, and compensation is due if what remains still reaches 3 hours. Ask for the ATC regulation reference and its validity window, then compare it with the actual timeline of your flight. The inline check on this page asks exactly that question: did ATC hold this flight on the day, or did your aircraft simply arrive late from an earlier rotation?

What you still get

• Care from 2 hours of delay (flights up to 1,500 km), 3 hours (1,500–3,500 km) or 4 hours (longer): meals, refreshments, two calls or emails, and a hotel with transport if the wait runs overnight.
• Refund of the unused ticket if the flight is cancelled or delayed 5 hours or more and you decide not to travel.
• Re-routing at the earliest opportunity when the flight is cancelled — including on another airline or by train where that is the earliest option, not only on the airline’s own next available flight.
• Reimbursement of reasonable expenses when the airline provided nothing: keep receipts.

When “ATC” does not excuse the airline

• Wrong day, wrong window. The restriction ended hours before your departure, or applied to a different sector. Ask for the regulation reference and its validity period.
• Knock-on delays the airline could have absorbed. Your evening flight is late because the aircraft’s morning rotation was held by ATC. The airline must prove the chain and show it could not have used a spare aircraft or crew. Standby crew at a base is a reasonable measure.
• Pre-emptive cancellations. An airline that thins its schedule days before a strike must still re-route you; if it simply cancelled and offered a refund, the cancellation may not have been “caused” by the strike at all.
• A small ATC delay inside a large airline delay. Forty minutes of slot delay does not explain a 3-hour-40 arrival delay; the airline must account for the rest.
• The label is wrong. “ATC restrictions” sometimes covers a late crew, a missed slot because boarding was slow, or a technical fault. The enforcement body will ask for the same evidence you can ask for.

ATC restriction or the airline’s own problem? How to tell

Airlines rarely lie outright; they generalise. “Air traffic control restrictions” on the departure board can mean a genuine flow regulation, a slot missed because the aircraft was not ready in time, or a crew that ran out of hours after a small ATC delay earlier in the day. Four checks separate them:

1. Ask for the reference. A real restriction has a regulation identifier and a calculated take-off time (CTOT) message with a time window. An airline relying on ATC should be able to quote both.
2. Look at the other departures. If flights from the same airport to the same region left on time in the same hour, the restriction did not hold yours.
3. Follow the aircraft. Flight-tracking history shows where your aircraft was that day. If it arrived late from its previous sector, the story starts there — and the airline must show why a spare aircraft or standby crew was not a reasonable measure.
4. Compare the numbers. Put the length of the ATC hold next to the length of your arrival delay. The difference is the airline’s to explain.

Enforcement bodies and dispute schemes ask exactly these questions; if the airline’s answer does not survive them, escalate.

Four realistic scenarios

French ATC strike; easyJet Nice → London cancelled at 06:00 on the day, at the authority’s request. Extraordinary. No fixed compensation. easyJet owes the choice of refund or re-routing — on its own next flight, another carrier or the train if that is sooner — and meals, plus a hotel if you are re-routed the next day.

Flow regulation at Frankfurt because of thunderstorms; your KLM flight arrives 3 h 20 late. Extraordinary for that flight on that day. No compensation; meals and refreshments after 2 hours.

Ryanair Dublin → Madrid, aircraft’s morning rotation held one hour by ATC at Stansted; by evening your flight is 3 h 30 late after the crew reached its duty limit and no standby crew was available. The ATC delay was one hour; the rest is crew planning at a Ryanair base. Often compensable — the airline must prove why standby crew was not a reasonable measure.

UK NATS failure, 28 August 2023; British Airways London → Barcelona cancelled. Extraordinary. No compensation. Re-routing and hotel were owed; passengers who booked their own hotels because the airline provided none can claim those costs back.

How to claim

1. Note scheduled and actual arrival times, keep boarding passes and every receipt for food, transport and accommodation.
2. Write to the operating airline for the specific ATC reference and the measures it took; claim expenses in the same letter — they are owed whatever the cause.
3. If the ATC story does not hold, claim the fixed compensation quoting Article 5(3) and Wallentin-Hermann, and escalate after eight weeks of silence or a refusal. The claim letter generator writes the letter with the ATC paragraph asking for the evidence; the general extraordinary circumstances page covers the legal test and the other causes.