Cancelled Flight Compensation in Poland — €250–€600 Under EU 261

If your flight from, to or within Poland is cancelled, EU Regulation 261/2004 gives you two rights at the same time. You always get to choose between a full refund of the ticket and re-routing to your destination, regardless of why the flight was cancelled. On top of that you may be entitled to fixed compensation of €250, €400 or €600 — but only if the airline gave you notice less than 14 days before departure and the cause was within its control. This page explains both, with the rules as they apply in Poland: the supervising authority is the Rzecznik Praw Pasażerów (RPP) at the ULC (Urząd Lotnictwa Cywilnego), lawsuits go to the Sąd Rejonowy, and you have ten years under the Polish Civil Code to file the claim. Polish version of this guide: lot odwołany — odszkodowanie .

A checklist for travellers stuck at the airport right now

If the cancellation just hit the board and you are still in the terminal, work through this list calmly and in order. The decisions you make at the desk shape the rest of the case.

1. Go to the airline's desk or its customer service — not the airport information point and not the travel agency. Under EU 261 the operating carrier is the only entity legally responsible for sorting out the disruption.
2. Ask in writing for re-routing to your final destination at the earliest opportunity. If you would rather drop the trip, ask for a full refund instead. The choice belongs to you, not the airline.
3. Refuse vouchers, miles or "goodwill credit" in place of cash. A refund under EU 261 must be paid in money, to the original payment method, within seven days.
4. Do not sign any paper that "settles" the matter. Carriers sometimes hand out a settlement waiver disguised as a re-booking form. Read every line; if in doubt, refuse and ask for the document by email.
5. Demand meals, drinks and — if the wait is overnight — a hotel and transport to and from it. This is the airline's duty of care under Article 9 EU 261 and it never falls away, not even in extraordinary circumstances.
6. Document everything. Photograph the departure board showing "Cancelled", save SMS and email notifications, keep boarding passes and re-booking confirmations, note times and the names of staff who spoke to you.
7. Do not negotiate the fixed compensation at the airport. That is a separate claim handled by mail or email later. There is no rush: under the Polish ten-year prescription period (Article 118 of the Civil Code, as confirmed for EU 261 claims by Cuadrench Moré, C-139/11), you have a decade to file.

One trap to flag explicitly: if you accept the refund, you give up the right to re-routing, and at that moment the airline's duty of care also ends. It can be the right choice when the trip is no longer useful, but make it deliberately, not under desk pressure.

Refund vs compensation — two rights, not one

This is the single most common misunderstanding around cancelled flights, and it costs Polish passengers thousands of euros a year.

A refund is the price of the ticket — paid back to your card or bank account, no more and no less. It is what you get for a service the airline did not perform. Under Article 8 EU 261 it must be paid within seven days, in cash, by electronic bank transfer or by cheque.

Compensation is something else entirely. It is a fixed, flat-rate amount — €250, €400 or €600 — for the disruption itself, regardless of what the ticket cost. A passenger who paid €40 on a Wizz Air sale gets exactly the same €400 as a business traveller who paid €700 on the same flight.

The decisive point: when a flight is cancelled, you may be entitled to both. The ticket refund and the disruption compensation are independent rights with independent rules. If a carrier refunds the ticket and tries to present it as the end of the matter, you keep the right to pursue the €250–€600 separately. This was confirmed early in the EU 261 case law — Sturgeon (joined cases C-402/07 and C-432/07, 2009) treats the fixed compensation as a separate, autonomous remedy that does not depend on actual financial loss.

Your three choices when a flight is cancelled

Article 8 of EU 261 forces the airline to put three options in front of you, and you pick:

• A refund of the ticket price for the unflown part of the journey — plus, if you have already begun the trip and it no longer serves any purpose, for the legs already flown.
• Re-routing to your final destination at the earliest opportunity, under comparable transport conditions. The airline must offer this even if it means buying you a seat on a competitor or routing you via another airport.
• Re-routing at a later date that suits you, subject to seat availability.

You hold this choice regardless of the cause. Even in extreme weather, an ATC strike or a volcanic ash event — situations where the fixed compensation is blocked by extraordinary circumstances — you still pick one of the three. The choice between refund and re-routing is therefore completely independent from the question of the €250–€600, which depends on the 14-day rule and the cause.

The 14-day rule — when fixed compensation actually applies

This is the single question that decides whether you get the cash. It is simpler than most passengers expect, and it turns entirely on when the airline notified you.

Read it this way: if the notice arrives at least 14 days before departure, the fixed compensation falls away entirely. You still get the refund-or-re-routing choice, but no cash for the disruption.

If the notice comes later than 14 days before departure, compensation can apply. How well the re-routing on offer matched your original schedule then also matters: a re-booking that lands you near the planned arrival time can reduce or eliminate the amount, while a re-routing that throws your timing off badly gives the full sum.

This answers the question Polish passengers ask the RPP most often — "the airline cancelled my flight three weeks ahead, am I entitled to anything?". The answer: yes to refund or re-routing, no to the €250–€600.

The amounts: €250, €400 and €600

If the fixed compensation is owed, the size is set purely by distance, not by what you paid for the ticket.

A few worked examples for Polish routes. Warsaw (WAW) → London Heathrow (LHR) is roughly 1,460 km — that is the €250 band. Kraków (KRK) → Athens (ATH) at about 1,790 km falls into €400. Warsaw → New York JFK at over 6,800 km, with US not being in the EU, gives the full €600. If the airline gets you to your destination on a re-routing with limited delay, the amount can in some cases be halved under Article 7(2) EU 261. To work out exactly what your flight is worth, use our walkthrough on how to calculate flight compensation .

When the cause blocks the claim — extraordinary circumstances

Even when the notice was late, the fixed compensation can fall away if the airline can prove the cancellation came from extraordinary circumstances — events outside its control that could not have been prevented even with all reasonable measures.

Two anchor points to keep in mind.

First, a "technical fault" is not automatically extraordinary. In Wallentin-Hermann (C-549/07, 2008) the Court of Justice held that faults connected to the normal operation of an aircraft fall within the carrier's responsibility. The same logic was tightened later in van der Lans (C-257/14, 2015): a malfunction during regular maintenance is not extraordinary either. A Polish Sąd Rejonowy will treat a vague "technical reasons" answer as failure of proof.

Second, the airline carries the burden of proof. If it cannot show concrete evidence — a METAR file, a NOTAM, an inspection report, a published ATC notice — the defence fails. The Court reinforced this in Krüsemann (C-195/17, 2018) when it ruled that a wildcat strike by the carrier's own crew is not extraordinary; the airline is supposed to manage its own labour relations.

To dig deeper into specific causes — bad weather, ATC strikes, technical faults — see our extraordinary circumstances guide in Polish and the dedicated weather-cancellation page .

The duty of care — meals, drinks and a hotel

Alongside the cash compensation there is the duty of care, and it matters a great deal when a flight is cancelled because the wait for a re-routing is often long. The duty of care is tied to the waiting time, not to the cause, so it never falls away — not even in extreme weather or a volcanic eruption.

While you wait for re-routing, the airline must offer, free of charge:

• meals and refreshments in reasonable relation to the waiting time;
• two telephone calls, telex or fax messages, or emails;
• a hotel and transport to and from the airport if you have to wait overnight or if the new departure is at least the day after.

The Court of Justice spelled out the limits explicitly in McDonagh (C-12/11, 2013), the Eyjafjallajökull volcanic-ash case: the duty of care under Article 9 has no time limit and no financial cap, even when the disruption arises from the most exceptional circumstance imaginable. A Polish carrier that hides behind "force majeure" to dump passengers on the airport floor is in clear breach.

If the airline offers nothing, buy reasonable food and book a reasonable hotel yourself, and keep every receipt. Polish courts apply a "reasonable cost" standard — a sit-down dinner at the airport hotel is fine; the lobster menu at the airport Hilton is not. Reclaim the costs by written demand later; if refused, add them to the lawsuit.

One last linkage to the checklist above: the duty of care runs only as long as you are waiting for re-routing. If you instead take the refund, it ends — because you have told the airline you no longer want it to carry you. There is more detail on this in our companion piece on right to meals and a hotel during a flight delay .

How to take your claim forward in Poland

This page covers what you are entitled to. How you actually collect the money in Poland — what to write, where to send it, what to do when the airline refuses — runs along a three-step path.

Step 1 — Written demand to the airline. A short letter or email, citing EU Regulation 261/2004 Article 5 (cancellation), Article 7 (amounts) and Article 8 (refund or re-routing). Set a 14-day deadline. Include the booking reference, flight number, date, distance and the calculated amount in euros. Polish carriers (LOT, Enter Air) typically have a Polish-language passenger rights form on their website; foreign carriers accept English. Costs zero.

Step 2 — Complaint to the RPP at the ULC. If the airline rejects the claim or stays silent for 30 days, file a free complaint with the Rzecznik Praw Pasażerów (Passenger Rights Ombudsman) at the Urząd Lotnictwa Cywilnego (Civil Aviation Authority) via the official ULC online form . The RPP issues a non-binding opinion within roughly 90 days. The opinion is non-binding but carries weight in court and often persuades the airline to pay rather than litigate. Costs zero.

Step 3 — Lawsuit at the Sąd Rejonowy. If the RPP opinion does not unlock the money, sue in the simplified procedure (postępowanie uproszczone) before the Sąd Rejonowy with jurisdiction over the airline's registered office or — under Rehder (C-204/08, 2009) — over the airport of departure or arrival. The court fee for claims up to PLN 2,000 is PLN 30 (or PLN 100 for higher amounts up to €600). Cases under €600 are normally handled on the papers, without a hearing. You have ten years from the date of the cancelled flight — the Polish prescription period from Article 118 of the Civil Code, confirmed for EU 261 claims by Cuadrench Moré (C-139/11, 2013).

If you would rather skip the paperwork, you can hand the case to a passenger-rights service. A service of that kind pursues the claim for you and takes a commission — typically 20–35% — only if it succeeds. If the claim fails, you pay nothing. You trade part of the payout for not having to handle the airline, the RPP and possibly the Sąd Rejonowy yourself.

Start a free claim check with AirHelp — no win, no fee

This is an affiliate link — if your claim succeeds we may receive a fee, without changing your payout. Our affiliate disclosure explains how it works. If you prefer to do everything yourself, the steps above are free.

When the cancellation is part of a bigger story

A cancelled flight rarely happens in isolation. Two adjacent situations come up constantly in Polish RPP files, and both have their own thresholds and rules.

• Delayed but not cancelled. If the flight was eventually operated, but arrived three hours or more late at the final destination, the cash compensation rules from Sturgeon (C-402/07, 2009) kick in. See our dedicated page on flight delay compensation .
• Missed connection because of the cancellation. If your first flight was cancelled and you missed a connecting flight on the same booking, the EU treats the whole journey as one transport unit — the relevant distance is the full route from the original departure to the final destination, not the leg you missed.

Either way, the underlying procedure in Poland is identical: written demand, RPP complaint, Sąd Rejonowy.

Key takeaways

• A cancelled flight always triggers the right to choose between a refund of the ticket and re-routing to your destination, regardless of the cause.
• Fixed compensation of €250, €400 or €600 is owed only when the airline gave notice less than 14 days before departure and the cause was within its control.
• "Within its control" is broad: technical faults (Wallentin-Hermann, C-549/07), wildcat strikes by own crew (Krüsemann, C-195/17), crew shortages and commercial decisions all count.
• The airline carries the burden of proof for any "extraordinary circumstances" defence.
• The duty of care — meals, drinks, hotel — never falls away, even in extraordinary circumstances (McDonagh, C-12/11).
• In Poland the path is: written demand → RPP at the ULC → Sąd Rejonowy, with a ten-year prescription period under Article 118 of the Civil Code.
• A refund does not waive the disruption compensation; a voucher accepted under pressure can usually still be challenged.