Kraków-Balice Flight Compensation (KRK) — Your EU 261 Rights from Poland

If your flight from Kraków-Balice (KRK) — formally the Międzynarodowy Port Lotniczy im. Jana Pawła II Kraków-Balice — was delayed by three hours or more on arrival, cancelled at short notice, or you were denied boarding against your will, you are entitled to a fixed payout of €250 to €600 under EU Regulation 261/2004 . The claim is filed against the operating carrier — Ryanair, Wizz Air, LOT, Lufthansa, British Airways, KLM, easyJet and the others that serve KRK — not against the airport itself. In Poland the supervising authority is the Rzecznik Praw Pasażerów (RPP) at the Urząd Lotnictwa Cywilnego (ULC), the lawsuit goes to the Sąd Rejonowy for Kraków-Krowodrza, and you have ten years to act under Article 118 of the Polish Civil Code. Polish version of this guide: opóźniony lot z Kraków-Balice — odszkodowanie .

Why KRK passengers run into delays more often than the timetable suggests

Kraków-Balice is Poland’s second-busiest airport after Warsaw Chopin and the dominant tourist gateway to Małopolska. It carries roughly ten to eleven million passengers a year, sees pronounced summer peaks driven by inbound tourism to the Old Town, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Zakopane, and operates with a single runway (07/25) and a tightly constrained slot pool. That combination — high seasonal load, one runway, limited apron space — is exactly the kind of mix that turns into a queue when anything upstream wobbles.

The carrier mix amplifies the effect. Ryanair and Wizz Air together provide more than half of KRK’s seat capacity, both running tight rotations across Western Europe with little buffer between sectors. A morning slip in Stansted or Luton compounds through the day until the evening Kraków-bound rotation lands an hour or two late. LOT Polish Airlines runs a smaller short-haul programme and a long-haul KRK to Chicago O’Hare service that, when disrupted, falls squarely inside the €600 compensation band. Lufthansa, KLM, British Airways and Air France connect KRK to their European hubs and feed onward intercontinental traffic — and a missed connection at Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Heathrow or CDG that arises from a delay at KRK falls under the same regulation, treated as a single transport in Wegener (C-537/17, 2018).

The compensation bands for a flight out of Kraków-Balice

The amount depends on distance, not on ticket price, and the trigger is the delay on arrival at the final destination.

The three-hour arrival-delay rule was set by the Court of Justice in Sturgeon (joined cases C-402/07 and C-432/07, 2009): a flight delayed by three hours or more on arrival creates a right to the same fixed compensation as a cancellation. That ruling is the spine of every KRK claim — without it, EU 261 would only cover cancellations and denied boarding.

For connecting itineraries — a KRK to a European hub then onward to North America, for example — the regulation looks at arrival at the final destination, not at the connection. The Court of Justice confirmed in Wegener (C-537/17, 2018) that a connecting booking is a single transport, so the relevant delay is measured against the touchdown of the last flight, not against the missed connection. If your final destination arrival is more than three hours late, the compensation is owed regardless of where in the chain the disruption started.

How to file the claim — Kraków-specific playbook

Three things to settle before you write a single email.

Identify the operating carrier, not the ticketing carrier. Codeshares are common at KRK: a ticket sold by LOT can be operated by Lufthansa, a SkyTeam booking can be operated by KLM. Look at the boarding pass: the two-letter code of the operating airline at the gate is the one you sue.

Document the actual arrival time. Screenshot Flightradar24 or FlightAware, photograph the airbridge clock, save the ATC arrival timestamp from the airline’s app. The carrier’s own records are the gold standard; for KRK departures you can also cross-reference the airport’s public information system on krakowairport.pl.

Write a clean, dated demand. State the booking reference, the flight number, the scheduled and actual times, the distance band, the legal basis (EU 261/2004 Article 7) and the exact amount. Give the carrier fourteen days. Send the demand by the airline’s online form and by registered post — the postal track is what the Sąd Rejonowy will accept as evidence of service.

If the carrier rejects or stays silent, the second tier is the Rzecznik Praw Pasażerów at the ULC. The RPP is free, runs entirely on documents, and issues an opinion that is influential — though not binding — on the carrier. Filing with the RPP also interrupts the prescription clock. For step-by-step phrasing of the demand letter and what to do if the airline ignores the RPP, see our flight compensation calculator and court flight compensation guides.

When the airline can refuse — and when the excuse does not hold

The airline does not owe the fixed compensation when the disruption flows from extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. The bar is high. Wallentin-Hermann (C-549/07, 2008) set the test: the cause must be not inherent in the normal exercise of the carrier’s activity and beyond its actual control. Twenty years of case law have populated the categories.

The burden of proof sits on the carrier, not on the passenger. If a Ryanair or Wizz Air rejection cites “operational reasons” without naming the specific event, the document, the NOTAM number or the union announcement, the rejection is incomplete and the RPP or the Sąd Rejonowy is likely to set it aside.

A separate question — the duty of care — runs independently of the cause. Whatever grounded the flight, if you wait at KRK for more than two hours (short-haul) or longer thresholds for longer routes, the carrier owes meals, drinks, two communications, and a hotel plus transport for an overnight wait. The duty of care has no financial cap and no exhaustion. Keep every receipt.

Polish jurisdiction: where to sue and the ten-year prescription window

For a flight departing KRK, the territorially competent court is the Sąd Rejonowy dla Krakowa-Krowodrzy in Kraków. The jurisdiction is anchored in Rehder (C-204/08, 2009), where the Court of Justice confirmed that an EU 261 passenger may sue at the court of either the departure or the arrival airport — so a Ryanair flight KRK to Dublin can be litigated in Kraków (departure) or in Dublin (arrival), at the passenger’s choice.

The prescription window in Poland is ten years from the date of the disrupted flight, under Article 118 of the Kodeks cywilny. The Court of Justice ruled in Cuadrench Moré (C-139/11, 2013) that national limitation periods apply to EU 261, and Poland’s general civil-law period is the most generous in the EU. A KRK passenger disrupted in June 2026 has until June 2036 to file. A written demand to the airline or a complaint to the RPP interrupts the clock; suing in court resets it.

The procedural threshold is low — small-claims via the EU Small Claims Procedure for cross-border carriers, the standard upominawcze (writ-of-payment) procedure for Polish litigation. Court fees on a €400 EU 261 claim are roughly 30 PLN; the filing template is published by the Ministry of Justice and is freely available.

Check your KRK claim with AirHelp — no win, no fee

The DIY-versus-service trade-off for KRK passengers

Filing yourself is realistic when the cause is unambiguous (three-hour-plus delay logged on Flightradar, a cancellation under fourteen days’ notice with no re-routing offered, a denied boarding with documented overbooking) and when the carrier responds to its online form within reasonable time. Polish-language demands processed via the RPP have a high success rate against Ryanair, Wizz Air and LOT when the file is clean.

A service is the better fit when the carrier rejects on extraordinary-circumstance grounds you cannot easily disprove, when the booking involves a codeshare and the operating carrier is contested, when the flight is part of a multi-segment itinerary covered by Wegener (C-537/17, 2018) logic, or when the airline’s response is in a language other than Polish or English. Read our companion piece on claim yourself or use a service for the full decision matrix.

FAQ

How much compensation can I get for a delayed flight from Kraków-Balice? Between €250 and €600, depending on distance. KRK to Vienna or Prague (under 1 500 km) pays €250, KRK to London or Madrid (1 500–3 500 km) pays €400, KRK to Chicago on LOT (above 3 500 km outside the EU) pays €600. The delay is measured on arrival, three hours or more, following Sturgeon (C-402/07 and C-432/07, 2009).

Who do I send the claim to — the airline or the airport? Always the operating carrier (Ryanair, Wizz Air, LOT, Lufthansa, etc.), never the airport. KRK is the infrastructure operator and is not the addressee of an EU 261 claim. If the carrier rejects, the next stop is the Rzecznik Praw Pasażerów at the ULC, then the Sąd Rejonowy for Kraków-Krowodrza.

Can I sue a foreign airline like Ryanair or Lufthansa in a Polish court? Yes. Rehder (C-204/08, 2009) confirms that a passenger may sue at either the departure or the arrival airport. For a flight out of Kraków-Balice the Sąd Rejonowy for Kraków-Krowodrza is competent regardless of where the carrier is registered.

How long do I have to file a KRK claim? Ten years from the date of the disrupted flight, under Article 118 of the Polish Civil Code. The Court of Justice held in Cuadrench Moré (C-139/11, 2013) that national prescription periods apply to EU 261. A KRK passenger disrupted in June 2026 has until June 2036 to sue.

My KRK flight was cancelled by an ATC strike — am I entitled to anything? The fixed €250–€600 is normally blocked because an external ATC strike is extraordinary under EU 261. The duty of care — meals, two communications, hotel plus transport for an overnight wait — still applies in full, with no cap. So does the right to a refund within seven days or to re-routing on the next available flight.