You missed your connection
What matters is how late you reached your final destination, not how late the first leg was. A ninety-minute delay that costs you a connection and lands you four hours late is a four-hour claim. The Court of Justice settled this in Folkerts.
Work out what your flight is owed →The rule that decides almost every one of these
Airlines routinely refuse these claims by pointing at the first flight: it was only eighty minutes late, which is under three hours, so nothing is owed. That is the wrong measurement.
In Folkerts v Air France (C-11/11) the Court of Justice held that compensation is owed where the passenger reaches the final destination three or more hours behind schedule — even where the delay on the first leg was well below the threshold. The short delay is not the disruption. The missed connection is.
So the only two times that matter are the arrival time printed on your booking and the time you actually got there.
One booking is one journey
This protection depends on the legs being part of a single contract of carriage — one booking, one reference. Where that is true the whole itinerary is treated as one journey, and it does not matter that a different airline flew the second leg.
Where you bought the legs separately, on two tickets, you generally have no protection for the missed connection at all. The second airline sold you a seat on a flight that departed on time, and it owes you nothing for your failure to be on it. This is the single most expensive booking mistake in air travel, and it is invisible until it costs you.
Where the journey began decides which law applies
For a connecting itinerary the departure point of the first leg is what brings the journey inside a statute. A Tel Aviv–Frankfurt–Toronto booking departs Israel, so the Aviation Services Law reaches it, and the Frankfurt–Toronto leg on a European carrier brings EU261 in as well.
Distance is measured the same way: from the first departure to the final destination, great-circle, ignoring the stop. That usually pushes you into a higher band than the individual legs would.
What to send, and what to ask for
- State both times and nothing else at first. Scheduled arrival at final destination, actual arrival at final destination. That is the entire claim.
- Name Folkerts if they point at the first leg. One sentence: the threshold is measured at the final destination, per C-11/11.
- Claim the care as well. A missed connection often means a night in a transit city. Meals and a hotel are owed under the care rules whatever the cause, and they are a separate claim from the compensation.
- Check who you are claiming from. It is the operating carrier of the flight that caused the delay, not whichever airline's logo is on the booking.
Questions
My first flight was only an hour late — do I still have a claim?
Very possibly. The test is your arrival at the final destination. If that hour cost you the connection and you landed three or more hours late, the claim is measured on the arrival, not on the first leg.
The two legs were on different airlines.
That is fine as long as they were on one booking. The itinerary is treated as a single journey, and you claim from the operating carrier of the flight that caused the problem.
I booked the two flights separately.
Then you are usually not covered for the missed connection. Each ticket is its own contract, and the second airline operated its flight as scheduled. Self-transfer is cheaper for a reason.
How is the distance worked out for a connection?
From your first departure airport to your final destination in a straight line, ignoring the stopover. That often lands you in a higher compensation band than either leg would on its own.
Related
- EU261 — the statute itself
- Your flight was cancelled
- Stuck at the airport: what the airline owes you now