Risarcimento volo in ritardo ITA Airways

ITA delays: what is specific

ITA connects through Rome Fiumicino and Milan Linate; on a single booking the delay is measured at your final destination. A late Milan–Rome sector that costs you the Rome–New York connection is a €600 case.

Italian ATC strikes are announced in advance, usually for a few hours; ITA cancels or delays around them. A third-party strike can be extraordinary, but ITA must still show it took all reasonable measures — including re-routing you rather than waiting. Strikes by ITA’s own staff are not extraordinary.

How the 3 hours are measured on ITA Airways 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 ITA Airways 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 ITA Airways 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 ITA Airways 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 ITA Airways’s typical routes.

Care while you wait

From 2 hours of delay (short flights), 3 hours (medium) or 4 hours (long) ITA Airways 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 ITA Airways may argue

Only extraordinary circumstances exempt ITA Airways 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 ITA Airways’s own staff strikes are not extraordinary. The burden of proof is on ITA Airways: 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 ITA Airways

1. Note the actual arrival time (arrivals board, flight-tracker screenshot, ITA Airways’s own notification).
2. Ask ITA Airways in writing for the reason for the delay.
3. Submit the claim through ITA Airways’s official channel (https://www.ita-airways.com/en_en/support.html), quoting the booking reference, the flight, the date, the arrival delay and the amount per passenger.
4. If ITA Airways refuses or does not reply within 8 weeks, escalate to ENAC (Italy NEB); a court claim remains available within the limitation period of the departure country.