Ryanair compensation: how to claim for delayed or cancelled Ryanair flights

Which Ryanair entity flew you

The Ryanair Group operates flights under the FR flight-number prefix through several licensed airlines: Ryanair DAC (Ireland), Ryanair UK (UK licence, for flights out of the UK to non-EU destinations), Malta Air (Malta), Buzz (Poland) and Lauda Europe (Malta). All of them are EU or UK carriers, so the regime depends only on where your flight departed: EU261 for EU/EEA departures, UK261 for UK departures. The entity name appears on your booking confirmation and boarding pass.

How to claim from Ryanair

Ryanair only accepts EU261 claims through its own online form, reachable from the help centre (“EU261 compensation”). Submit one claim per booking listing every passenger, attach the booking confirmation, and keep the case number. Ryanair states it answers within a few weeks; in practice initial rejections that cite “extraordinary circumstances” are common for weather and ATC events, and Ryanair does pay for technical, crew and rotation delays once challenged with the correct legal basis.

Ryanair does not accept claims sent through claim-management companies without a power of attorney — claiming yourself is the fastest route.

What Ryanair typically argues

• Air traffic control — Ryanair frequently cites ATC staffing or strikes, particularly in France. ATC restrictions are usually extraordinary, but the airline must show they affected your flight and that it could not reschedule; ask for the specific ATC regulation reference.
• Rotation / late inbound aircraft — only extraordinary if the original cause on the earlier sector was extraordinary. Ask for the root cause.
• Technical problems — not extraordinary under settled case law (Wallentin-Hermann, van der Lans).

Escalation

• Flights departing the UK: Ryanair is a member of AviationADR, whose decisions bind the airline. Use it after a refusal or 8 weeks of silence.
• Flights departing Ireland: complain to the Irish Aviation Authority, Ireland’s enforcement body.
• Flights departing other EU countries: the enforcement body of the departure country (for example the LBA in Germany, AESA in Spain, ENAC in Italy).
• Court: small-claims procedures in the departure country or, for Irish flights, the Irish courts. Ireland’s limitation period is 6 years; other countries are shorter.

Amounts on typical Ryanair routes

Most Ryanair sectors are short-haul, so €250 (£220 from the UK) is the standard amount. Routes over 1,500 km — Dublin to the Canary Islands, London Stansted to Marrakesh or Tenerife, Warsaw to Lisbon — pay €400 (£350). The few Ryanair routes over 3,500 km that leave the EU or the UK — London Stansted to Tel Aviv, about 3,560 km, when operated — sit in the €600 / £520 band. The examples above are computed from airport coordinates.