Picture this: you land three hours late, exhausted, somewhere that isn’t home. The airline’s app is useless. The gate agent has disappeared. And somewhere in the back of your mind, you remember hearing that flight delays and cancellations might actually entitle you to money — but from who, exactly, and under which country’s rules?
That’s where it gets messy.
Modern air travel doesn’t respect borders. A single trip might involve a departure from one country, an airline registered in another, and a final destination somewhere else entirely. When something goes wrong mid-journey, the legal question of who owes you what gets complicated fast.
Lennuabi specialises in exactly this kind of complexity.
Which Rules Even Apply?
The short answer: it depends. European Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 is the main framework — and it has a broader reach than most passengers realise. It kicks in when a flight departs from an EU airport (regardless of which airline is flying), or when it arrives into the EU and the carrier is EU-based.
So even if you’re flying an American airline from Paris, you’re likely covered.
The catch? Knowing that the regulation exists and knowing how it applies to your specific itinerary are two very different things. Throw in multiple countries, a codeshare arrangement, or a missed connection, and suddenly the eligibility question takes real expertise to answer.
Because of this, plenty of passengers just… don’t bother. They assume they won’t qualify, or the process seems too painful, or they don’t even know a claim exists. That’s a lot of unclaimed compensation sitting on the table.
What You Could Actually Be Owed
For flight delays and cancellations where the airline bears responsibility, EU rules set fixed compensation amounts — no negotiating:
- Flights up to 1,500 km: €250
- Intra-EU flights over 1,500 km, or other routes between 1,500–3,500 km: €400
- Long-haul flights over 3,500 km: €600
The threshold for delays is three hours or more at your final destination. Miss that mark and the entitlement generally doesn’t apply; clear it and the airline is on the hook — unless they can prove “extraordinary circumstances” caused the disruption and that nothing could have prevented it.
That last part matters. Airlines invoke extraordinary circumstances regularly. Whether the claim holds up is a separate question entirely.
The Paperwork Problem
Here’s the thing: even passengers who know their rights often stumble at the claim stage. Airlines might respond in another language. They might ask for documentation you don’t have. They might simply ignore the initial request, hoping you’ll give up.
And honestly? A lot of people do.
Boarding passes, booking references, arrival time records — the list of what you might need isn’t short. Submit something incorrectly and the process stalls. Start over. Repeat.
For someone already dealing with travel disruption in an unfamiliar place, that’s a significant ask.
What Lennuabi Actually Does
Rather than leaving passengers to wrestle with airline bureaucracies alone, Lennuabi handles the structured side: reviewing flight details, assessing whether compensation applies, and managing the back-and-forth with carriers according to European regulatory practice.
No decoding legal text yourself. No wondering if the airline’s response is legitimate. No guessing whether you’re filling out the right form for the right jurisdiction.
Flight delays and cancellations are stressful enough without adding a layer of international claims administration on top. Having someone who knows how these cases work across different jurisdictions — and can push them forward — changes the experience considerably.
The money may already be yours. Whether you actually see it is a different story.
