Indemnización por vuelo retrasado de Brussels Airlines

Brussels Airlines delays: what is specific

Brussels is a connecting hub for the Africa network: a late arrival from Kinshasa or Abidjan delays the onward European sectors, and a European delay can cost you the long-haul connection. On a single booking the delay is measured at your final destination, so a missed Brussels connection that arrives in Entebbe three hours late is a €600 case.

Belgian strike days affect ground handling and security at Brussels Airport, and skeyes (Belgian ATC) industrial action grounds flights outright. Third-party strikes can be extraordinary; Brussels Airlines must still show it took all reasonable measures, including re-routing you on another carrier.

How the 3 hours are measured on Brussels Airlines flights

The delay that counts is the arrival delay at your final destination, measured when at least one aircraft door opens — not the departure delay, the touchdown time or the block-on time. Compare it with the scheduled arrival on your booking. A Brussels Airlines flight that leaves 3 hours 30 late but makes up time to arrive 2 hours 50 late is not compensable; one that leaves on time and arrives 3 hours late is.

How much Brussels Airlines owes for a delay

Under EU261 the amount depends only on the great-circle distance of the flight (or of the whole journey on a single booking), never on the ticket price: €250, €400 or €600 per passenger. On flights over 3,500 km Brussels Airlines may halve the amount (€300 instead of €600) when the arrival delay is between 3 and 4 hours; from 4 hours the full amount applies. The table above shows the amounts on Brussels Airlines’s typical routes.

Care while you wait

From 2 hours of delay (short flights), 3 hours (medium) or 4 hours (long) Brussels Airlines must offer meals and refreshments in proportion to the wait, two phone calls or e-mails, and a hotel with transport if you are kept overnight. If it does not, keep receipts for reasonable expenses and claim them separately — they come on top of the fixed compensation. After 5 hours you may also abandon the trip and claim a full refund of the unused ticket.

What Brussels Airlines may argue

Only extraordinary circumstances exempt Brussels Airlines from paying: severe weather, air-traffic-control restrictions or strikes, security incidents, bird strikes, external strikes. Technical faults, crew shortages, late inbound aircraft from an earlier rotation and Brussels Airlines’s own staff strikes are not extraordinary. The burden of proof is on Brussels Airlines: ask for the precise cause of your flight’s delay and the measures it took, and treat a bare “operational reasons” as no answer.

How to claim a delay from Brussels Airlines

1. Note the actual arrival time (arrivals board, flight-tracker screenshot, Brussels Airlines’s own notification).
2. Ask Brussels Airlines in writing for the reason for the delay.
3. Submit the claim through Brussels Airlines’s official channel (https://www.brusselsairlines.com/en-be/customer-service), quoting the booking reference, the flight, the date, the arrival delay and the amount per passenger.
4. If Brussels Airlines refuses or does not reply within 8 weeks, escalate to FPS Mobility and Transport (Belgium NEB); a court claim remains available within the limitation period of the departure country.