EU 261 2026 — The New Definitions: What Changes Compared to 261/2004 (Poland Guide)

EU 261 2026 new definitions explained for Poland: delay threshold, connecting flights, force majeure. RPP/ULC route, Sąd Rejonowy and the 10-year prescription period.

Regulation (EU) 2026/261 is the EU's revised air passenger rights regulation, the long-awaited successor to EU Regulation 261/2004 . The compensation amounts — €250, €400 and €600 — do not change. What does change is the underlying language: the delay threshold that triggers compensation, the way connecting flights are assessed and what an airline may legitimately call force majeure. Those three definitions are where most real claims are won or lost, and the reform tightens all three. For Polish passengers the procedural route stays the same — the Rzecznik Praw Pasażerów (RPP) at the ULC (Urząd Lotnictwa Cywilnego) for an administrative complaint, the Sąd Rejonowy for a civil suit, and ten years under Article 118 of the Polish Civil Code (Kodeks cywilny) to file. Polish version of this guide: EU 261 2026 — nowe definicje .

One disambiguation before we go further, because this is the point where readers most often end up on the wrong page: this guide is about the air-passenger reform — Regulation 2026/261 — not the parallel directive on rail passenger rights. The two reforms travelled through the institutions at the same time and the press conflated them more than once. They are different instruments and different rules.

Compensation is not a refund — and the 2026 reform does not change that

Before any of the new definitions, one distinction has to be crystal clear because it is the most common misunderstanding on this subject. Compensation is a fixed flat sum — €250, €400 or €600 depending on flight distance — that you receive for the inconvenience of a long delay, a cancelled flight or denied boarding. A refund is something else: it is getting the ticket price back when you choose not to travel at all.

Regulation 2026/261 keeps the two terms strictly apart, exactly as 261/2004 did. In some situations you are entitled to both at the same time — a cancelled flight typically gives a refund and the cash compensation for inconvenience. The reform does not touch that split. It is worth saying plainly, because airlines sometimes offer a refund and present it as if the file is now closed. It is not. If the rejection letter from LOT, Wizz Air or Ryanair offers a refund and stops there, the compensation question is still open.

What counts as a delay that triggers compensation

Under 261/2004 the three-hour rule grew out of CJEU case law, not the text of the regulation itself. In the joined Sturgeon and Others (C-402/07 and C-432/07, 2009) judgment the Court ruled that a delay of three hours or more at the final destination is equivalent to a cancellation for the purpose of the right to compensation. The fact that the rule rests on case law and not on an explicit article has been its weakness — easier to attack, easier to chip away at in lower courts, easier to refuse in a customer-service email.

The 2026 reform's stated purpose is to write the delay threshold directly into the regulatory text. That is a real improvement in substance: a rule in the operative text of the regulation is much harder for an airline to contest than a reference to a judgment. The legal weight of Sturgeon is being upgraded from "interpretation of the text" to "the text itself".

Where the threshold finally lands is the one point on which honest reporting still diverges, and we are not going to paper over it. The Council of the EU position from June 2025 sought to raise the threshold for shorter flights — four hours instead of three was actively discussed. Later industry communications point the other way, with airline associations stating that three hours holds regardless of distance. Until the final consolidated text in EUR-Lex resolves it, we treat the threshold as not yet established and continue to advise filing on the existing three-hour line for any disruption that occurs today. If your flight is delayed in the meantime, the practical filing route is unchanged and our delayed flight compensation guide walks through the documents you need.

Connecting flights: which journey is assessed

This is the area where the reform delivers the clearest concrete win for ordinary passengers. Under 261/2004, the assessment of connecting flights has been a recurring point of dispute: is each leg looked at on its own, or is the journey as a whole the unit of analysis? The CJEU answered the question repeatedly in favour of passengers — most decisively in Wegener (C-537/17, 2018), which held that a booking with a connecting flight is treated as a single transport operation, and in Folkerts (C-11/11, 2013), which clarified that what counts is the delay at the final destination, not on the intermediate leg. But again the rule has rested on case law rather than the text of the regulation, which has made it possible for airlines to keep refusing on the merits and force passengers to escalate.

The 2026 reform aims to write the single-booking principle straight into the regulatory text. The practical consequence for a Polish passenger flying Warsaw – Frankfurt – New York on one ticket: a fifty-minute delay on the WAW–FRA leg that causes a missed connection and a six-hour delay arriving at JFK is claimable — what counts is the arrival time at JFK, not the magnitude of the delay on the first leg. The position is exactly the opposite if the legs were booked separately with different carriers: each leg is then assessed on its own, and a six-hour delay arriving at JFK because of a missed connection on a different ticket is not claimable.

The codification matters because it removes a routine first-line rejection. If a Polish passenger had to escalate to the Rzecznik Praw Pasażerów merely to have Wegener applied, the reform brings that question down to first-line customer service. For the underlying mechanics — what counts as a single booking, what to do when the carrier hands you a stand-by re-routing — see our companion guide on missed connection compensation .

Extraordinary circumstances — and what force majeure is not

Airlines do not owe compensation when the disruption was caused by extraordinary circumstances outside their control. The term has lived in 261/2004 without an exhaustive definition, and that gap has made it the most-stretched clause in the whole regulation. Refusal letters routinely invoke "force majeure" for events that the CJEU has long held are no such thing. The Court has been clear and repeatedly so: in Wallentin-Hermann (C-549/07, 2008) technical defects discovered during routine maintenance were held to be part of an airline's ordinary activity, not extraordinary. In Krüsemann (C-195/17, 2018) a wildcat strike by the carrier's own crew was held not to be extraordinary. Even Pešková (C-315/15, 2017) — the bird-strike case — applies only narrowly: the collision itself can be extraordinary, but a slow inspection afterwards is the airline's own organisation.

The 2026 reform tightens the door. The clearest concrete signal so far is that purely commercial reasons — rising fuel prices, low load factors, internal cost pressure — are expressly out. An airline cannot cancel a route for cost reasons and then call it a circumstance outside its control. What continues to count as extraordinary in substance — severe weather, air traffic control strikes, security threats — does not change. What changes is the operative discipline: the airline must be able to document the cause with real evidence (METAR, NOTAM, Eurocontrol slot record, formal strike notice), not a generic phrase in an email.

One important thing does not change at all, and it is the part airlines most often try to avoid: the duty of care. Even when compensation falls away because the event was extraordinary, the airline's duty under Article 9 to look after passengers stays — meals and drinks in proportion to the wait, two phone calls or equivalent, and, for an overnight wait, a hotel with transport to and from it. The Court confirmed this expressly in McDonagh (C-12/11, 2013) during the Eyjafjallajökull volcanic-ash crisis: extraordinary or not, the carrier must look after the passenger. The reform preserves that pillar unchanged.

For a deeper read of the defence itself — which causes survive and which fall — our extraordinary circumstances guide goes through each common cause with the controlling case law.

What stays exactly the same in Poland

If you read only the EU-level headlines you might assume everything around an EU 261 claim is changing. In Poland the procedural picture stays essentially the same, and that is a useful anchor when the substantive picture is still in flux.

  • The supervisor is the same. The Rzecznik Praw Pasażerów (RPP) at the ULC (Urząd Lotnictwa Cywilnego) is the body to which a Polish passenger files an administrative complaint when the airline refuses or ignores the claim. The RPP procedure is free, the form is online, and the decision is non-binding but very persuasive in subsequent court proceedings.
  • The civil court is the same. A civil suit against the airline goes to the Sąd Rejonowy — the District Court — typically where the airline has its registered office, although the Court ruled in Rehder (C-204/08, 2009) that an EU 261 claim may also be filed at the court of departure or destination. For a flight from Warsaw to Madrid, that means the passenger can choose between courts in Warsaw and courts in Madrid.
  • The prescription period is the same. Article 118 of the Polish Civil Code (Kodeks cywilny) gives a passenger ten years to file a civil EU 261 claim where the claim is not connected with their business activity. The reform does not touch national prescription. A passenger whose flight from Warsaw, Kraków, Gdańsk, Wrocław or Katowice is cancelled in June 2026 has until June 2036 to sue.
  • The duty of care is the same. Article 9 — meals, drinks, communication, hotel — applies throughout, regardless of cause.

What changes is the substance of the assessment, not the route of the claim.

This page is based on the published Commission proposal, the Council position of June 2025, EUR-Lex citations and the existing CJEU case law. It is reviewed and dated. It is not legal advice — for advice on your individual case, contact the Rzecznik Praw Pasażerów (RPP) at the Urząd Lotnictwa Cywilnego (ULC) or a Polish lawyer specialising in passenger rights.

When to handle the claim yourself and when to use a service

For a clean, single-cause case — a three-hour-plus delay at the final destination of a single-ticket booking, with a written admission from the airline of the cause — handling the claim yourself is straightforward. The RPP form is free, the documents to attach are the booking confirmation and the boarding pass, and the airline typically pays once an RPP file is opened.

The picture changes when the airline contests the cause, when the disruption sits on the line between extraordinary and not (a strike with mixed staffing, a borderline weather event, a partial ATC restriction), or when the claim involves a connecting flight on the line between Wegener and a separate-ticket scenario. In those cases the time cost of building a documentary case — pulling METAR reports, formal strike notices, Eurocontrol records — is high, and a no-win-no-fee service usually nets more after their cut than a passenger gets alone after a rejection.

Check your EU 261 2026 claim with AirHelp — no win, no fee

For the trade-offs between the two routes — DIY versus service — see our breakdown of claiming yourself or using a service .

Frequently asked questions

Do the new definitions in Regulation 2026/261 apply to my flight already?

No. For any flight disrupted today, EU 261/2004 still governs the claim. Regulation 2026/261 is published in EUR-Lex, but the substantive provisions only take effect after the transition period set out in the final text. The rules that decide your claim are those in force on the date of the disruption — not the date you write to the airline or file with the Rzecznik Praw Pasażerów at the ULC.

Do the compensation amounts of €250, €400 and €600 change under the 2026 rules?

No. The amounts of €250, €400 and €600 remain in every text published so far — the European Commission proposal, the Council position from June 2025, and the consolidated draft. EUR is the legal unit. What the 2026 reform changes is not the size of the compensation but the definitions that decide when it is triggered.

Does a long delay still count from three hours under the 2026 rules?

The three-hour threshold today comes from the Sturgeon judgment (C-402/07, 2009), not from the operative text of 261/2004. The reform aims to write a delay threshold directly into the legal text. Where it lands in the final consolidated text is the point on which reporting still diverges — the Council position from June 2025 floated four hours for shorter flights, while later industry statements point at three hours holding. Until EUR-Lex is unambiguous, treat the threshold as not yet finalised.

How do connecting flights work under the new rules?

The reform aims to write the existing case-law position into the regulatory text: a single booking is one journey, and it is the arrival time at the final destination that is measured. The principle comes from Wegener (C-537/17, 2018) and Folkerts (C-11/11, 2013). For a Warsaw – Frankfurt – New York passenger on one ticket what counts is the arrival time at JFK. If the legs were booked separately with different airlines, each leg is assessed on its own.

Does the new force-majeure definition change anything for Polish passengers?

Yes. The Commission has signalled that purely commercial reasons — rising fuel prices, low load factors, internal cost pressure — are not extraordinary circumstances and may not be invoked. What stays extraordinary in substance does not change: extreme weather, ATC strikes, security threats, certain bird strikes. Decisions of the Rzecznik Praw Pasażerów at the ULC and judgments of Polish Sądy Rejonowe will increasingly turn on whether the airline can produce real documents — METAR, NOTAM, Eurocontrol slot record — rather than the words "force majeure" in an email.

How long do I have in Poland to file a claim under the new rules?

Ten years. The Court ruled in Cuadrench Moré (C-139/11, 2013) that national prescription periods govern EU 261 claims, and Poland applies Article 118 of the Polish Civil Code (Kodeks cywilny). The reform does not touch national prescription. A passenger whose flight from Warsaw was cancelled in June 2026 has until June 2036 to file a civil claim before the Sąd Rejonowy.

Sources and further reading