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myFlightDelayed.com

EU Law 261/UK Law 261 is a regulation establishing common rules on compensation and assistance to passengers in the event of denied boarding, flight cancellations, or long delays of flights. It repealed Regulation (EEC) No. 295/91, and went into effect on 17 February 2005. It sets out the entitlements of air passengers when a flight that they intend to travel on is delayed or cancelled, or when they are denied boarding to such a flight due to overbooking, or when the airline is unable to accommodate them in the class they had booked.

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The regulation applies to any passenger:

• departing from an airport located in the territory of a Member State to which the Treaty applies; the protection accorded to passengers departing from or to an airport located in a Member State should be extended to those leaving an airport located in a third country for one situated in a Member State, when a Community carrier operates the flight and where a community carrier is defined as any carrier licensed to operate within that community.
• departing from an EU member state, or
• travelling to an EU member state on an airline based in an EU member state

if that person has:

• a confirmed reservation on the flight, and
• arrived in time for check-in as indicated on the ticket or communication from the airline, or, if no time is so indicated, no less than 45 minutes prior to the scheduled departure time of the flight

or

• have been transferred from the flight for which he/she held a reservation to some other flight

unless

• the passenger is travelling on a free or discounted ticket not available to the general public, other than a ticket obtained from a frequent flyer program.

It does not apply to helicopter flights, to any flight not operated by a fixed-wing aircraft, nor to flights from Gibraltar Airport. While Switzerland is not a Member State of the EU, the regulation does apply to it under bilateral agreements.