The short answer
Flying out of the UK or the EU, or into it on a UK or EU airline, you are owed meals and refreshments in proportion to the wait, two calls or emails, and a hotel with transfers if you are stuck overnight. Weather, strikes and volcanoes do not excuse any of it. They excuse the cash compensation, which is a separate claim. If the airline provides nothing, buy what you reasonably need, keep itemised receipts and bill it. The EU has just voted to cap the hotel half at three nights, from 2027.
| What you are owed | UK and EU now | EU from 2027 | US | Canada |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Food and drink while you wait | Yes | Yes, on a fixed clock | Airline promise only | Yes, after 2 hours |
| Hotel if you are stuck overnight | Yes, no cap | Yes, capped at 3 nights in some cases | Airline promise only | Yes |
| Transport to and from the hotel | Yes | Yes | Airline promise only | Yes |
| Owed when the cause is outside the airline’s control | Yes | Yes, but capped | No | No |
| Cash compensation on top | Only if the airline was at fault | Only if the airline was at fault | No | Only if within airline control |
When does the clock start?
Under the rules in force today, Article 6 sets the trigger by distance, not by how bad the day has been.
| Flight distance | Delay before food and calls are owed |
|---|---|
| 1,500 km or less | 2 hours |
| 1,500 to 3,500 km | 3 hours |
| Everything longer | 4 hours |
The hotel is a separate trigger, and it arrives when the expected departure is at least the day after the one on your ticket. At five hours you gain the option to abandon the flight and take your money back, and the care stops with it. On a cancellation, care starts at the moment of cancellation with no distance clock at all.
What counts as reasonable?
The regulation sets no figure, and no airline checked here publishes one. They publish a standard instead. The UK Civil Aviation Authority says airlines “are unlikely to consider alcoholic drinks, luxury hotels or luxury meals to be reasonable”. easyJet is more specific in writing: standard class or shared transport, a “3 star or equivalent” hotel where available, food and drink excluding alcohol. Ryanair’s notice promises “reasonable receipted expenses” and no number.
So the test is not what you can afford. It is what the airline would have bought: an airport hotel at the going rate, a shared shuttle, a meal at airport prices. A suite and a bottle of wine come out of your pocket.
Two documentation rules cost people real money. easyJet requires “valid itemised receipts or invoices on headed paper” and says it cannot accept credit card receipts as proof of payment. It also will not reimburse a hotel you booked yourself when the airline could have provided one free. Ask at the desk first, and note the time and the name of whoever tells you there is nothing.
Does a storm get them out of it?
No, and this is the part airlines are worst at admitting. In McDonagh v Ryanair, decided on 31 January 2013, a passenger stranded for a week by the Eyjafjallajökull ash cloud sued for the meals and hotel Ryanair had refused. The Court of Justice held that airspace closure does “not release air carriers from their obligation” to provide care, and that “no limitation, whether temporal or monetary” on that obligation appears anywhere in the regulation. Extraordinary circumstances kill the compensation claim and leave the care duty standing. That is still the law in the UK and, until the reform below applies, in the EU.
The same judgment sets the ceiling on what you recover: the amounts that “proved necessary, appropriate and reasonable” in the circumstances. Unlimited is not unconditional.
What changes when the EU reform lands
The Council gave final clearance on 13 July 2026 to the first rewrite of these rules since 2004, and it replaces Article 9 outright. Most of it is an improvement. The distance ladder disappears, so care runs from the scheduled departure time on every flight: refreshments every two hours, a meal after three hours and then every five, up to three a day, internet access and two calls. Hotel and transfers stay. EU airports must offer free drinking water and charging at any hour. If the airline arranges nothing, you arrange your own and it must repay you within 14 calendar days, or 30 where the airport has activated its contingency plan.
Then there is the new paragraph 6. Where the disruption is caused by extraordinary circumstances, the airline “may limit the accommodation provided” to a maximum of three nights. Recital 31 gives the reason: carriers “currently face unlimited liability for the accommodation of their passengers” when such circumstances persist. That overrules McDonagh for exactly the case McDonagh was about. Another ash cloud, and night four is yours.
Paragraph 7 adds a trap: take the refund while still at your departure airport, or accept rerouting on a later date, and you lose all further assistance for that flight. None of it is live yet. The regulation applies 12 months and 20 days after publication in the Official Journal, so nothing changes before 2027.
The UK is not copying the cap. The Civil Aviation Bill announced on 2 June 2026 goes the other way, giving the CAA power to fine airlines that fail to support passengers through disruption “including with food and accommodation”. It is a Bill, not an Act. If it passes, a passenger stranded in Manchester by the next volcano is better off than one stranded in Madrid.
What if you are flying in the US or Canada?
In the US there is no legal duty of care. There is the Department of Transportation’s dashboard of what each airline has promised, and a promise is enforceable once made. All nine large carriers listed commit to a meal or voucher when a controllable delay leaves you waiting three hours or more, and all commit to a hotel and ground transport for an overnight except Frontier, which commits to neither. None commits to cash. Note the qualifier on every row: within the airline’s control. A weather cancellation gets you rebooking and a refund right, nothing else.
Canada sits between the two. The Air Passenger Protection Regulations require food and drink “in reasonable quantities” plus access to a means of communication after a two hour wait, and a hotel with transport where an overnight becomes necessary. That duty runs when the disruption is within the airline’s control, including where it is within control but required for safety. If the cause sits outside its control, you get completion of your itinerary and nothing more.
What care does not cover
Care pays for surviving the wait, not for the consequences of it. The hotel night booked at the other end, the airport parking, the missed excursion, the lost day of earnings: easyJet excludes all of those in writing, and the others take the same line.
They take a different route. Article 19 of the Montreal Convention makes the airline liable for damage caused by delay unless it proves it took all reasonable measures, and you must prove what you lost. The ceiling is 6,303 Special Drawing Rights per passenger, roughly £6,400 at the IMF rate of 15 September 2026. It is a real claim and a slow one. Insurance is faster, if your policy does not exclude the cause, which is where most delay claims die. On a package, start with your rights against the organiser.
The mistakes that cost people money
- Sitting at the desk waiting to be given a hotel. If nobody is arranging anything, photograph the empty desk, note the time, then book your own and claim.
- Keeping the card slip instead of the itemised receipt. It is not proof of what you bought, and at least one major airline says in writing it will refuse one.
- Booking your own hotel while the airline still has rooms. That is the one case where a reasonable expense is not recoverable.
- Filing one claim for everything. A refusal on extraordinary circumstances grounds kills the compensation and says nothing about your expenses.
Questions people ask
The delay is weather. Do they still owe me a hotel? In the UK and the EU, yes, for as many nights as the wait lasts. Weather removes the cash compensation, not the bed. In the EU from 2027, everything after the third night goes too.
They handed me a 10 pound voucher for a 9 hour delay. Is that it? No. The test is proportion to the waiting time, and nine hours across a mealtime is a meal, not a sandwich. Spend what is reasonable, keep the receipt, claim the shortfall.
How long do I have to claim expenses back? The regulation sets no deadline, so the ordinary limitation period applies: six years in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, five in Scotland, and it varies across the EU. The nine month deadline the reform introduces is for compensation, not expenses.
Does the duty cover a connection I missed? Yes, if the whole journey was on one booking. Care runs until you are on your way, the same test that decides what the missed connection itself is worth.
Can I claim compensation as well? If the cause was within the airline’s control and you landed more than three hours late, yes, as a separate payment on top of every receipt. The amounts are in our guide to delay compensation.
Sources: Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 Articles 6 and 9 as retained in UK law, legislation.gov.uk. Judgment in Case C-12/11 McDonagh v Ryanair, 31 January 2013, EUR-Lex. Adopted text of the amending regulation, document PE-CONS 39/26, Council of the EU, and the Council statement of 13 July 2026. Right to care guidance, UK Civil Aviation Authority. Expenses policy, easyJet, and passenger rights notice, Ryanair. Airline commitments, US Department of Transportation. Standards of treatment, Air Passenger Protection Regulations, section 14. Liability limits, ICAO. Civil Aviation Bill announcement, GOV.UK.
Researched from primary sources and checked September 2026. General information, not advice.
