Your delayed flight has a price. Find it in 30 seconds.
Eleven passenger-rights statutes, one calculator. We work out what you are owed, compare every law that reaches your route, and write the demand letter for you.
The flight
An example is loaded — change it to yoursOptional — needed only for the statutes that pay a share of the fare
What you are owed
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Your details stay in this browserQuestions passengers actually ask
Which laws does this cover?
Eleven statutory regimes: the EU's Regulation 261/2004 (which Norway, Iceland and Switzerland apply too), the UK's retained version, Israel's Aviation Services Law, Canada's Air Passenger Protection Regulations, Türkiye's SHY-Passenger regulation, India's DGCA rules, the US denied-boarding rule, Brazil's ANAC Resolution 400, Thailand's CAB Regulation 101, Indonesia's PM 89/2015 and Saudi Arabia's GACA regulation. They overlap constantly — a Tel Aviv–Toronto flight triggers two at once — so the page runs all of them and marks the one that pays most.
How late do I have to be?
It depends entirely on which law reaches your route. Three hours in the EU, the UK and Türkiye. Three hours in Canada too, but there the payment then steps up again at six and nine hours. Eight hours in Israel, and ten in Thailand — the steepest threshold anywhere. In India, the United States and Brazil a delay pays nothing at all, however long; only cancellation or denied boarding does.
Which law do I use if two apply?
You choose, but only once for the same disruption. A Tel Aviv–Frankfurt flight on Lufthansa is covered by both the EU and Israel, and the EU's €400 beats Israel's ₪2,350 at most exchange rates. This page ranks them for you using indicative rates — check the real rate on the day before you decide.
The airline said it was weather. Is that the end of it?
No. Every one of these regimes puts the burden of proof on the airline, and all of them read the exemption narrowly. That means the specific meteorological or air-traffic-control record for your flight, not a generic sentence in an email. Wallentin-Hermann (C-549/07) settled that routine technical faults, crew rostering and overbooking are ordinary business risks. Canada draws the same line in its own words: the disruption must be outside the carrier's control.
Does a cheap ticket mean less money?
In Europe, the UK, Israel, Canada, Türkiye, Thailand and Indonesia, no — compensation is fixed by distance or by delay, never by fare. In the United States, India and Saudi Arabia it is the opposite: the payment is a multiple of what you paid, subject to a cap. That is why the ticket price field exists — fill it in and those three compute exactly instead of showing a ceiling.
Nothing applies to my route. Is that it?
Not quite. The Montreal Convention 1999 covers almost every international flight on earth and makes the carrier liable for damage caused by delay — but it pays your proven losses, not a fixed sum, and only up to a ceiling of a few thousand SDR. You need receipts: the missed hotel night, the rebooked connection. It is slower and more work than a statutory claim, which is why it is the fallback rather than the first move.
What is 'duty of care' worth?
It is separate from compensation and has no cap. From two hours of waiting the airline owes food, drink and two communications; if you are stranded overnight it owes a hotel room and the transfers. Brazil's ANAC rules are built almost entirely around this — they pay no fixed compensation but mandate assistance from one hour and a refund or re-accommodation past four. If the airline refuses and you pay yourself, keep every receipt and claim it back on top of the fixed sum.
How long do I have to claim?
It depends on where you file. Six years in the UK and Ireland, five in France and Spain, three in Germany, two in the Netherlands, one year in Canada under the APPR. For claims under Israeli law, assume the shorter Montreal Convention window of two years unless a lawyer tells you otherwise. Claim early — evidence decays.
Why can't the auto-detect find my flight?
Live status comes from a commercial aviation API through a server route, and it needs an API key that this browser-only build does not carry. Historical records also age out of most APIs after a few weeks — which is exactly when most claims get filed. Filling the route in by hand takes ten seconds and produces exactly the same letter.
The small print
About this site
DirectFlightClaim is a free calculator that works out what a delayed, cancelled or overbooked flight entitles you to under eleven passenger-rights statutes, and then writes the demand letter for you. It exists because the claims agencies advertising against these searches keep between a quarter and a third of whatever they recover — on a long-haul European claim that is more than €200 — and the work they do for that fee is a letter you can send yourself in ten minutes. Everything here is free, there is no account, and there is nothing to sign up for.
Privacy
Nothing you type on this page is sent anywhere. The airports, the dates, your name and your booking reference are held in your browser’s memory, used to compute the result and write the letter, and discarded the moment you close the tab. There is no database, no account system, no analytics, no advertising script and no cookie. Two things do reach third parties and you should know about them. The page loads its typefaces from Google Fonts, which means Google sees the IP address your browser connects from. And the site is served by Cloudflare, which like any host keeps the usual request logs. If you use the Copy link button, the details of your claim are encoded into the link itself — so treat that link as you would treat the information inside it, and do not post it publicly.
Terms of use
The site is provided as it is, with no warranty of any kind. The figures are computed from published statutes and are indicative: the decision on your claim rests with the airline, the national enforcement body or a court, and statutory amounts are revised from time to time by the regulators who set them. You are responsible for checking the current figure before you file, and for everything you send under your own name. No liability is accepted for any loss arising from use of this site.
Legal disclaimer
This is not legal advice, and no lawyer–client relationship arises from using this site. DirectFlightClaim is not a law firm and is not regulated as one. The letters it generates are templates built from the text of the statutes; they are a starting point, not a substitute for advice on your particular case. If your claim is large, contested, or bound up with a personal injury or an event you cannot replace, speak to a qualified lawyer in the jurisdiction where you would file.
Contact
Corrections are genuinely welcome, particularly on the statutory amounts — they change, and a wrong figure here costs a passenger money. If you spot one, write to [email protected] with the country and a link to the source, and it will be fixed.