Care and assistance: meals, hotel and transport the airline must provide

What must be provided

• Meals and refreshments in reasonable relation to the waiting time.
• Communication: two telephone calls, e-mails or messages.
• Hotel accommodation where a stay of one or more nights becomes necessary, or where a stay additional to the one you intended becomes necessary.
• Transport between the airport and the hotel.

Special attention is owed to passengers with reduced mobility, their companions, and unaccompanied children.

When it starts

Immediately for cancellations and denied boarding. For delays, from the distance-based threshold: 2 hours on flights up to 1,500 km, 3 hours between 1,500 and 3,500 km, 4 hours on longer flights.

No cause exempts the airline

The Court of Justice held in McDonagh v Ryanair — the volcanic-ash case — that the duty to provide care applies even in the most extraordinary circumstances and is not limited in time or amount. A strike or a storm may cancel compensation; it never cancels care.

If the airline gives you nothing

Pay for what you reasonably need, keep every receipt and claim the amounts back in writing. Reasonable means a normal meal, a modest hotel near the airport, a taxi when public transport is not available. The airline may refuse what it considers excessive, and an ADR body will use the same standard.

Vouchers and desk queues

A voucher for one sandwich after six hours is not “reasonable relation to the waiting time”. If the queue at the desk makes it impossible to obtain care in time, buying it yourself and claiming the cost is the accepted route.