Flight Cancelled by the Airline or by the Airport Operator: What Are the Passenger’s Rights

Flight cancellation is one of the most frequent sources of disputes in air transport litigation, and it raises a twofold question for the passenger: against whom can claims be brought, and what protections are actually available when the disruption is not directly attributable to the airline but rather to malfunctions traceable to the airport infrastructure manager.

The regulatory framework

The cornerstone remains Regulation (EC) No. 261/2004, which grants passengers a three-tier system of protection: the right to re-routing or reimbursement of the ticket, the right to assistance at the airport (meals, accommodation, communications) and, where the conditions are met, the right to a fixed monetary compensation ranging between €250 and €600, graduated according to the distance of the route.

One point deserves immediate clarification, as it is a frequent source of confusion: the party obligated toward the passenger is, in every case, the operating air carrier — that is, the airline that actually performs (or should have performed) the flight — regardless of whether the cause of the cancellation lies in a decision by the airline itself or in an external factor, such as an organizational malfunction on the part of the airport manager. The passenger’s right, and the corresponding obligation of the operating carrier, derive directly from the Regulation, not from the contract of carriage: this was clarified by the Court of Justice of the European Union in its judgment of 29 February 2024, Case C-194/24, which specified that a passenger may rely on the Regulation even in the absence of a direct contractual relationship with the carrier. In other words, the passenger does not need to approach the airport management body to obtain assistance or reimbursement: the counterparty remains, at all times, the carrier, which may subsequently seek recourse against the third party actually responsible.

Protections in the event of cancellation

When a flight is cancelled, the passenger is entitled, at their choice, either to full reimbursement of the ticket within seven days or to re-routing to the final destination under the most favourable conditions (Articles 5 and 8 of the Regulation). In addition, the passenger has the right to free assistance (meals, refreshments, overnight accommodation where necessary, and transfers) for the entire duration of the wait (Article 9).

Monetary compensation, however, is not automatic: it is due only if notice of the cancellation was given less than fourteen days in advance and no alternative flight was offered with sufficiently comparable timing to the original one (Article 5(1)(c) of the Regulation). The airline may also be exempt from this obligation if it demonstrates that the cancellation was caused by extraordinary circumstances that could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken (Article 5(3)), with the burden of proof resting on the carrier. The Italian Supreme Court has reaffirmed that this exemption is conditional on rigorous proof — which rests entirely on the carrier — of three distinct elements: the actual existence of the extraordinary circumstance, a direct and unavoidable causal link between that circumstance and the cancellation of the specific flight, and the adoption of all measures necessary and reasonably required to avoid the damage, or the impossibility of adopting them (Court of Cassation, Civil Section III, Order No. 20489 of 2026). The trial court cannot regard the causal effect of an extraordinary circumstance as proven on the basis of simple presumptions or generic knock-on effects of the event, since this would result in an impermissible reversal of the burden of proof to the passenger’s detriment (Court of Cassation, Civil Section III, Order No. 20489 of 2026).

As to the nature of the claim, compensation under Article 7 of the Regulation constitutes an automatic pecuniary obligation, liquidated and due from the moment the disruption occurs, with default interest running without the need for formal notice of default, and the increased rate under Article 1284, fourth paragraph, of the Italian Civil Code applying from the date the claim is filed in court (Court of Cassation, Civil Section III, Order No. 19975 of 2026). Furthermore, in cases of denied boarding, the rights under Articles 7 and 8 of the Regulation are cumulative: choosing between reimbursement and re-routing does not amount to a consensual amendment of the contract, nor an implicit waiver of compensation, since any waiver must be based on free and fully informed consent, with the burden on the carrier to prove that it fully informed the passenger of the rights available (Court of Cassation, Civil Section III, Order No. 20441 of 2026, referring to the Court of Justice, 29 February 2024, C-11/23, and 21 December 2021, C-263/20).

The issue of extraordinary circumstances attributable to the airport

This is where the role of the airport management body becomes practically significant. Disruptions such as strikes by air traffic controllers, security staff or ground handling personnel, or malfunctions of airport infrastructure, are in the abstract capable of constituting extraordinary circumstances external to the carrier’s sphere of organization, since they involve third parties independent of the airline: recital 14 of the Regulation expressly mentions, by way of a non-exhaustive example, strikes affecting the operating carrier’s activity, and European case law includes within this notion strikes by air traffic controllers or airport staff, which fall outside the carrier’s own activity and beyond its effective control (Court of Justice, 4 October 2012, C-22/11, Finnair; Bari Court, Judgment No. 1103 of 2026).

This classification, however, is not automatic, and a mere reference to the external event is not sufficient: the Supreme Court has clarified that an air traffic controllers’ strike does not in itself constitute an exempting extraordinary circumstance, since the carrier must demonstrate in concrete terms that it had no residual power to intervene or any usable operational margin to adopt alternative measures, and the timing of the strike notice is a decisive factor: if the strike was announced well in advance, the carrier was in a position to organize itself accordingly (Court of Cassation, Civil Section III, Order No. 12277 of 2026). Along the same lines, a carrier that learned in advance of a strike notice is required, in accordance with objective good faith, to promptly alert passengers, assist them in rebooking the flight and ensure ticket reimbursement, without this amounting to an unbearable burden (Court of Cassation, Civil Section III, Order No. 11948 of 2026). Lower court case law is divided on this point — some courts recognize the exemption for controllers’ strikes as an unavoidable event outside the carrier’s control (Rome Court, Judgment No. 3512 of 2026), while others still require proof of a total shutdown of air traffic and of the unavoidability of the cancellation (Nola Court, Judgment No. 1838 of 2025) — but the trend in Supreme Court case law is not to treat this classification as a given.

In any case, where the extraordinary circumstance does exist, the exemption applies only to monetary compensation: the airline remains obliged to provide assistance and, alternatively, reimbursement or re-routing. The Court of Justice has clarified that the extraordinary circumstances under Article 5(3) exempt the carrier solely from the compensation obligation under Article 7, and that there is no category of “particularly extraordinary” events that releases the carrier from all its obligations (Court of Justice, 8 June 2023, C-454/23).

The situation is different when the strike involves the airline’s own employees (pilots, cabin crew): in that case the event falls within the carrier’s own organizational risk, is foreseeable, relates to the ordinary conduct of its business, and compensation remains due (Court of Justice, 23 March 2021, C-28/20; Bari Court, Judgment No. 1103 of 2026). The only exception concerns demands that only public authorities can satisfy and which therefore fall outside the carrier’s control.

It should also be noted that European case law requires a direct causal link between the external event and the cancellation of the specific flight. As for disruptions occurring on earlier flights, the Court of Justice accepts that a carrier may rely on an extraordinary circumstance that affected an earlier flight operated by the same aircraft, provided there is a direct causal link with the delay or cancellation of the subsequent flight, to be assessed case by case by the trial court in light of how the aircraft was managed (Court of Justice, 22 April 2021, C-318/21; Palermo Court, Judgment No. 3322 of 2026). A generic reference to disruptions in unrelated contexts is therefore not permitted.

The airport manager’s liability toward the passenger

It remains to clarify whether the passenger may bring a claim directly against the airport management body, instead of (or in addition to) the carrier. As a general rule, since there is no direct contractual relationship between the passenger and the airport manager, such an action would have to be based on tort liability, provided that culpable conduct on the part of the manager can be demonstrated — for example, an unjustified closure of the airport, or organizational shortcomings in security or ground-service management that caused the disruption. This is, however, a more difficult path from an evidentiary standpoint compared to the essentially strict-liability action available under Regulation 261/2004 against the carrier: for this reason, in practice, it is almost always advisable to direct reimbursement and compensation claims at the airline, reserving any action against the airport manager for cases involving further damages specifically attributable to culpable conduct on the manager’s part.

The specific case of adverse weather conditions

One particularly frequent scenario for cancellations is adverse weather. Unlike strikes — where a distinction must be drawn depending on whether the carrier’s own staff or third parties are involved — adverse weather conditions are cited in the recitals of Regulation 261/2004 as a typical example of an extraordinary circumstance. This exempts the airline from paying monetary compensation, but does not affect the other protections: the right to reimbursement or re-routing on an alternative flight, as well as the right to free assistance during the wait, remain due regardless of the cause of the cancellation.

The exemption, however, does not apply automatically: the burden of proving that weather conditions actually and specifically prevented the particular flight rests on the airline, which must also show that it adopted all reasonable organizational measures to limit the disruption (on this threefold burden of proof resting on the carrier, see Court of Cassation, Civil Section III, Order No. 20489 of 2026). When filing a complaint, it is therefore worth checking a few elements: whether the bad weather actually affected the airport and the specific time of the flight in question (rather than, generically, “the area”); whether other flights on the same route departed on schedule during the same time window, a fact that weakens the claimed exceptional nature of the event; and, where the cancellation results from a knock-on effect on the aircraft’s rotation, whether the direct causal link required by the case law of the Court of Justice exists between the weather event and the cancellation of the specific flight, rather than a generic connection to an earlier flight (Court of Justice, 22 April 2021, C-318/21; Palermo Court, Judgment No. 3322 of 2026).

Applicability to low-cost airlines

Regulation 261/2004 applies identically to all airlines, with no distinction based on business model or ticket price. The criterion for applicability is objective (Article 3): the rules apply to every flight departing from an airport located in an EU Member State, regardless of the carrier’s nationality, as well as to flights arriving in a Member State if operated by a Community carrier (subject, for flights departing from third countries, to the condition that the passenger has not already received compensation or assistance in that third country). There is therefore no exemption or reduced regime for low-cost carriers: the same rights — reimbursement or re-routing, free assistance, monetary compensation except in extraordinary circumstances — apply to the passenger regardless of the price paid for the ticket, including in the case of promotional or “basic” fares.

On this point, recent European case law has clarified two relevant issues: (i) a passenger who pays only air transport taxes and airport charges is not travelling free of charge, since these items form an integral part of the ticket price; (ii) a promotional fare reserved for a category of professionals defined in the abstract (such as healthcare professionals) is “available to the public,” and the exception under Article 3(3) of the Regulation — which excludes passengers travelling free of charge or at a reduced fare not available to the public — must be interpreted restrictively, with the burden of proof resting on the carrier (Court of Justice, 16 January 2025, C-21/25, Qatar Airways; Court of Justice, 6 March 2025, C-139/25). Furthermore, the boarding pass can serve as adequate evidence of a confirmed reservation for purposes of compensation (Court of Justice, 6 March 2025, C-139/25).

The difficulties consumers sometimes encounter with these carriers relate more to commercial practice than to the underlying legal framework: less accessible complaint channels, less transparent communication about procedures, and a tendency to invoke extraordinary circumstances even where the causal link with the disruption is weak. In any event, such conduct can be fully challenged using the same means — formal complaint, intervention by ENAC, legal action — available against any carrier.

Upcoming developments

A reform of Regulation 261/2004 aimed at updating the system of passenger protections has been under discussion for over a decade. As things currently stand, however, no reform act has been approved and published: Regulation (EC) No. 261/2004, in its version of 11 February 2004, remains fully in force, and passengers may rely on it as it stands. It should be borne in mind that the three-hour delay threshold on arrival, regardless of the length of the route, as a condition for the right to compensation, is not written into the Regulation but derives from the case law of the Court of Justice, which equated a delay of three hours or more with cancellation for purposes of the right to compensation (Court of Justice, 19 November 2009, C-402/07 and C-432/07, Sturgeon; Court of Justice, 23 October 2012, C-581/10 and C-629/10, Nelson and British Airways; Court of Justice, 26 February 2013, C-11/11, Folkerts, consistently cited by the Court of Cassation: Court of Cassation, Civil Section III, Order No. 1584 of 2018). More recent European case law has further specified that the right to compensation is intrinsically linked to an actual loss of time of three hours or more upon arrival at the final destination (Court of Justice, 25 January 2024, C-74/24), and that, in the case of a prolonged delay, the passenger must have presented themselves for check-in within the required time (Court of Justice, 25 January 2024, C-73/24).

How to protect yourself in practice

A passenger affected by a flight cancellation is advised to:

• keep all relevant documentation (boarding pass, booking confirmation, any communications received from the carrier);

• submit a written complaint to the airline, clearly stating the protections being claimed (reimbursement, re-routing, compensation);

• if there is no response or the refusal appears unjustified, contact the competent national authority (in Italy, ENAC, designated under Article 947 of the Navigation Code as the body responsible for enforcing EU legislation) or pursue legal action.

As for time limits, a distinction must be drawn depending on the legal basis relied upon. Monetary compensation under Regulation 261/2004 is not subject to the two-year time-bar set out in Article 35 of the Montreal Convention, since it is a fixed indemnity falling outside the scope of that Convention: the time limit for bringing a claim is governed by national law, in accordance with the principles of equivalence and effectiveness (Court of Cassation, Civil Section III, Order No. 4427 of 2024, referring to the Court of Justice, 22 November 2012, C-139/11). For rights arising from the contract of carriage of persons by air, Article 949-ter of the Navigation Code subjects them to the time-bar rules set out in international legislation, excluding ordinary limitation; for contracts of carriage generally, the one-year limitation period under Article 2951 of the Italian Civil Code applies instead. A two-year limitation period is expressly provided for, but only for travellers claiming damages arising from a package holiday, running from the return to the place of departure (Articles 51-quater and 43(7) of the Tourism Code). It is therefore prudent not to rely on a generic “two years from the date of the flight” rule, but to check, case by case, the regime applicable to the specific claim being asserted.

Correctly identifying the cause of the cancellation — distinguishing between an organizational factor attributable to the carrier, an external extraordinary circumstance, and, in the more delicate cases, culpable conduct on the part of the airport manager — remains the first step in correctly framing the passenger’s protection strategy.