Iberia flight delay compensation

Iberia owes €250, €400 or €600 per passenger for an arrival three or more hours late, a cancellation announced within fourteen days, or denied boarding. Distance alone sets the band: what you paid for the ticket makes no difference to the amount Iberia has to pay you.

What Iberia owes, by distance

When it applies: Arrival 3+ hours late, cancellation notified less than 14 days ahead, or denied boarding. The figures come from EU Regulation 261/2004 and are per passenger, including children on their own ticket.

How to claim, in four steps

1. Work out what Iberia owes. Enter the route, the date and how late you arrived. A flight from Madrid is often covered by two statutes at once, and the calculator shows which of them pays more.
2. Write the demand. The letter is dated, cites EU Regulation 261/2004 by article, and is addressed to Iberia Líneas Aéreas de España. Nothing you type leaves your browser.
3. Send it to Iberia. Use “Claims and receipts” below, and keep a copy of what you submitted. A claim that exists only in a phone call cannot be proved afterwards.
4. Escalate to Spain's Agencia Estatal de Seguridad Aérea. If Iberia refuses or says nothing, the calculator writes the chaser and then the escalation letter, naming that regulator and citing the article the airline ignored.

Where to send it — Iberia's own claim pages

• Claims and receipts
• Air passenger rights
• Delayed or cancelled flights

If Iberia does not resolve the claim, Spain's enforcement body is AESA, and it accepts complaints from passengers directly once the airline has had its chance to answer. Keep the claim reference Iberia gives you.

The refusals Iberia sends, and what answers them

Each of these has a settled answer in case law — the EU261 page sets out the judgments, names the cases, and quotes what the airline has to prove instead.

Other things that go wrong on an Iberia flight

• When the airline blames a technical fault — when Iberia blames a technical fault
• Airline strike compensation — when Iberia cancels because of a strike
• “Extraordinary circumstances” — what actually counts — when Iberia calls it weather or “extraordinary”
• Your flight was cancelled — when Iberia cancels your flight outright
• Should you use a claim company? — when Iberia ignores you — and why you still do not need a claim company
• You missed your connection — a missed connection on an Iberia itinerary
• Denied boarding and overbooking — being bumped from an overbooked flight by Iberia
• They moved you to a lower class — being moved to a lower class by Iberia
• Your bag did not arrive — a bag Iberia delayed or lost
• Stuck at the airport: what the airline owes you now — meals and a hotel while Iberia leaves you waiting

Questions

Open the calculator with Iberia selected →

Claiming from Iberia in practice

Which band your route falls into, from MAD

Distance decides the amount, and it is measured as the great-circle distance between the two airports — not the miles flown. These are real distances from Iberia's main base, so you can see where the thresholds sit before you measure your own route.

If Iberia refuses or says nothing

The regulator for Iberia is Spain's Agencia Estatal de Seguridad Aérea (AESA) (seguridadaerea.gob.es). Take the claim there once the airline has had its chance to answer and has either refused or gone silent — bring the dated letter, the airline's reply, and your booking reference. Stage 3 of the calculator writes the escalation letter that names this body.

How long you have: Five years in Spain under the general civil limitation period.

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