EU 14-Day Flight Refund Rule Wins Parliament Vote, Starts 2027

What Parliament approved

Travellers who book flights through travel agents or online booking sites have long been passed back and forth between the airline and the agent when a flight is cancelled. The European Parliament has now voted to put a deadline on that process. On Tuesday, 20 October, MEPs approved a regulation that updates passenger protections for air, rail, ship, bus and coach travel. The vote was 652 in favour, two against and eight abstentions.1119

The central change is a 14-day limit on refunds for cancelled flights bought through an intermediary. The refund must cover the full ticket price plus any intermediary fee.1115 The deadline has two stages. The airline has up to seven days to send the money to the agent or platform, and the intermediary then has up to seven more days to pay the passenger.1119 Booking platforms will also have to explain how refunds work when the customer books.1518

The 14-day clock does not apply to tickets bought directly from an airline. Those passengers are already owed a refund within seven days, and that rule has existed for years.11 In other words, the reform deals with one specific gap: bookings made through a third party.

Who pays when the agent doesn't

Outlets describe the backstop clause in slightly different ways. One report says the airline must pay the passenger itself if an intermediary misses its deadline.12 Another says passengers who still have no money after 14 days can claim the refund directly from the operating airline.14 Both versions give the same practical result: in the end, the airline that operated the flight is responsible. That is the most important change in the package, because passengers will no longer get stuck while two companies argue over who holds their money.1318

The regulation includes three other measures:

• A standard claim form. The European Commission will publish one form for reimbursement and compensation claims, covering all transport types and available in every official EU language. Carriers can provide their own form instead, as long as it is equivalent.1215
• Free companions on flights. Passengers with disabilities or reduced mobility will be able to bring an accompanying person free of charge when that person's presence is necessary. Bus, rail and ferry travel already has this rule.1119
• Stronger enforcement. National authorities will be able to start audits, inspections and interviews with carriers on their own initiative, without waiting for a passenger complaint.1519

Italian MEP Matteo Ricci, who led the file, said lawmakers were putting citizens' rights ahead of airline profits. He also said national authorities should make companies meet their obligations without passengers having to go to court.1920

Not in force yet

None of this applies yet. The Council of the EU must still formally approve the text, and it must then be published in the Official Journal. The scheduled start date is 23 October 2027.1519 One outlet says "mid-2027".14 Most reports give the October date, which is also when the wider air passenger reform starts, so October 2027 is the date to plan around.1820 Until then, the current rules still apply.1518

How it fits with the EU261 overhaul

This vote is often confused with the larger rewrite of air passenger rights (EU261), but it is a separate law. After 13 years of deadlock, Parliament and Council negotiators reached a provisional deal on that rewrite in mid-June 2026.2126 The final text was published on 2 October as Regulation (EU) 2026/2202.16 The new cross-transport regulation focuses on enforcement and claims procedures. The EU261 rewrite sets the actual rights that air passengers have.15

On compensation, the outcome is clear. The Council had tried to raise the delay threshold to four hours on shorter routes and six on long-haul flights, but this failed.2430 Passengers can still claim €250, €400 or €600, depending on distance, when a flight arrives more than three hours late or is cancelled less than 14 days before departure.21 One legal analysis says that neither the longer threshold nor a wider definition of "extraordinary circumstances" covering most technical faults made it into the final text.23

The overhaul also adds several procedural rights:

• Airlines must tell passengers within 96 hours how to claim. They must acknowledge each claim straight away and then pay it or explain a refusal within 30 days.21
• After a cancellation, passengers who ask to be rerouted must get an alternative within three hours. If the airline fails to offer one, passengers can book their own travel and claim up to 400% of the original fare.1614
• Airlines can no longer cancel a return flight because the passenger skipped the outbound leg.14
• Fares must include hand luggage from the start of booking.18 One analysis says only the smaller under-seat item is guaranteed free, not a full overhead trolley bag.25
• Passengers will have nine months to file a claim.27

Airlines are not happy with the result. The European Regions Airline Association says complying with EU261 will cost more than €15 billion a year, up from €8.1 billion, and that passengers will pay for it through higher fares.16 Claims firms are worried about how strictly the rules will be enforced. AirHelp says airlines wrongly reject 58% of valid claims in their first response, and it fears the new 30-day deadline could lead to a wave of standard rejection letters.16 The new standard form and the proactive audits look designed to deal with that problem.

Refunds and compensation are different

The new rules make it more important to separate two rights. A refund means getting the ticket price back. Compensation is a cash payment that depends on what caused the disruption.15 This October has shown why that matters.

The month has brought a series of strikes. A four-hour Italian air traffic control walkout on 30 September disrupted 23 airports, with 308 flights cancelled and 1,746 delayed.33 In Portugal, easyJet cabin crew strikes overlapped with a general strike from 2 to 6 October.33 On 9 October, Brussels Airlines cancelled about 40% of its flights after staff at its ground handler, Alyzia, joined a national strike.38

The French pilot and cabin crew strike planned for 17 to 21 October shows how hard it can be to keep track. One passenger-rights firm listed it as confirmed for Air France, Transavia France and Corsair.35 A later update reported that the notice was suspended on 9 October.40 The later report looks more reliable, but travellers should check directly with their airline rather than rely on older strike calendars.

The cause of a strike decides what passengers get. When a third party such as a ground handler strikes, airlines are generally treated as facing extraordinary circumstances. They do not owe cash compensation, but they must still provide refunds, rebooking and care.39 When an airline's own staff strike, as with easyJet crew in Italy on 16 October, a late cancellation can be worth €250 to €600.40 The 14-day refund rule applies whatever the cause. That is why it may help more people than the headline compensation figures, which many passengers never qualify for.

The border problem these rules don't solve

No passenger-rights law covers a growing source of travel misery: queues at border control. The EU's Entry/Exit System (EES), which records fingerprints and facial images of non-EU travellers, has been fully operational since 10 April 2026.1 On 12 October, the airport group ACI Europe and the airline group Airlines for Europe (A4E) said waits still routinely exceed two hours and reach five hours in the worst peak-time cases. They blamed staff shortages, unreliable IT systems and too little use of kiosks and automatic gates.67

The Commission takes a narrower view. It says only about 20 crossing points have serious queues and that suspending the system is neither needed nor possible.10 The temporary option to pause biometric checks during long queues ended in September, and the industry groups are now asking for a permanent version.15

For passengers, the key point is that EU compensation rules generally do not apply if a border queue makes them miss a flight. Border authorities run the checks, not airlines.5 With the UK's October half-term running from 26 to 30 October, families flying to Schengen countries should allow extra time at the border.5 ETIAS, the separate €20 pre-travel authorisation, has not launched, and travellers do not need it yet.5

The verdict

The 14-day rule is not dramatic, but it is useful. It does not create new compensation. Instead, it closes a gap in who is responsible for refunds, and that gap mainly affected people who booked through cheaper third-party sites. Together with the standard claim form, proactive enforcement and the 30-day response deadline in the EU261 rewrite, it shows a clear direction in EU policy: the rights stay largely the same, but the process for claiming them is being tightened. Whether this works will depend on how actively national enforcement bodies use their new powers once the rules start in late 2027. Meanwhile, the biggest delays travellers face this autumn, at border control, fall outside passenger-rights law altogether.