Most Asked Questions

AirHelp and our official partners will never ask you to send us money in order to get your airline compensation.

But unfortunately, phishing scammers have been known to target AirHelp customers, asking for money to proceed with a claim.

The security of our customers is of the utmost importance. So if you are contacted by someone claiming to represent AirHelp, especially if they ask for money and/or personal details, please reach out to our customer support team for assistance. Our official channels for communication are on our contact page.

AirHelp works on a “no win, no fee” basis. So if we don’t win the case in court, we won’t charge you any fee for our services — that’s part of AirHelp’s promise.

You will find the requested document(s) attached to the email you receive from us. Simply click on the document and save it to your device. Once downloaded, you can print it using your home printer, or if you don’t have one at home, at any shop that offers a printing service. In case you need any further assistance, please ask your network administrator.

The time limit for submitting a claim depends on the country in which the claim is filed. Here’s a quick overview:

European Union

In the EU, you generally have up to 3 years from the date of the flight disruption to submit your claim. However, this varies by country. For example:

• Poland: 1 year

• Slovakia: 2 years

• Latvia: 10 years

Here’s a full list of EU limitation periods by country.

Other countries

• Brazil: 5 years for domestic flights, 2 years for international flights

• Saudi Arabia: 60 days

• Turkey: 2 years

We recommend filing your claim as soon as possible to ensure you get your compensation.

Extraordinary circumstances refer to any events outside of the airline’s control that have resulted in a flight disruption. These are situations where a disruption could not have been avoided, even if the airline had taken all reasonable measures.

Extraordinary circumstances include:

• Strikes by airport employees or air traffic control

• Political unrest

• Extreme weather conditions

• Security risks

• Travel restrictions

• Emergency health conditions

Yes, flights disrupted by extreme weather conditions are not eligible for compensation. Airlines may cancel or delay flights if environmental conditions could affect their passengers’ safety. Extreme weather falls under extraordinary circumstances and is, therefore, beyond the airline’s control.

Your eligibility for compensation depends on the regulations in the region where you are flying. AirHelp supports claims under various flight regulations worldwide, including EC 261 in Europe, ANAC 400 in Brazil, Saudi Arabia PRPR, and more.

Since each regulation has its own eligibility criteria, the simplest way to check if you qualify is by using AirHelp’s flight checker.

In general, you may be eligible for compensation if:

• Your flight was heavily delayed by several hours

• The airline was responsible for the disruption

• You have a confirmed flight reservation

• You submit your claim within the country’s time limit

Airlines must pay compensation for denied boarding where they are at fault — the most common example is flight overbookings. 

We can’t accept claims for denied boardings due to document problems

It is the passenger’s responsibility to ensure they have the correct documents required to board their flight and enter their destination country. For example:

• Valid passport or other accepted ID

• Valid visa

• Proof of return ticket

• Proof of Covid-19 vaccinations

• Negative Covid-19 test result 

• Passenger locator form

If you are not able to show the airline the required documents when requested, the airline has no choice but to deny boarding. There is no compensation owed in this circumstance as the airline is not at fault. 

Other situations where the airline may deny boarding and is under no obligation to provide compensation include:

• Passengers who arrive at the gate too late

• Passengers behaving disruptively
  

Children are entitled to compensation after a flight disruption if they have either a reserved seat or have paid the full price of an adult airfare. For any other situation, please submit your claim which will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

Absolutely not! Filing a legal case against the airline won’t have any effect on your freedom to travel with them or any other airlines in the future.

This issue can happen from time to time. When you receive a second request for a document, it usually means that there was an issue with the original document you provided.

It could be that the documents weren’t in the correct format and we couldn’t open them, or that the information on the documents wasn’t clearly visible.

Note that if you have sent the documents to us via email or chat, it can take a while for these documents to show on our system. To ensure your claim is processed quickly, always upload documents to your dashboard.

If you are still receiving multiple requests from us even after resubmitting your documents, please head over to our Contact Form or Live Chat. Our experts can help you resolve the issue.

We only request a copy of a personal identification document in order to meet a requirement of a third party involved in the claim process. For example, the airlines and/or courts.

Some airlines need ID to validate the authenticity of the Assignment Form, while courts need it to validate the power of attorney.

At AirHelp, we take your privacy very seriously and all personal data is stored securely. We will never share it with any third parties other than the operating airlines and the judicial bodies (where applicable) without your prior explicit consent. We are also compliant with all the EU data protection regulations, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

You can read more about AirHelp Privacy Policy here.

We take your privacy very seriously. Therefore, we would like to assure you that our data protection policy on the processing, sharing, and storing of personal information is fully compliant with all EU data protection regulations, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

You can read more about the AirHelp Privacy Policy here.

If the airline already offered you compensation, that’s great! Simply follow their instructions to get your money.

However, if the airline only offers you travel vouchers, air miles, or only partial compensation, you could still be eligible for compensation. The easiest way to find out is to check if you’re eligible.

Yes, you have the right to compensation from the air carrier, unless you were offered re-routing that allowed you to depart no more than one hour before the scheduled time of departure and to reach your final destination less than two hours after the scheduled time of arrival depending on distance.

Your flight confirmation is the written confirmation that you were a passenger on the flight in question. It may also be referred to as a ‘Booking Confirmation Document’ or ‘e-ticket’. It will contain your booking reference number, passenger details and flight details.

You can find your flight confirmation in the emails or documents the airline (or travel agency) provided when you purchased the flight.

A booking reference is a unique code used by the airline to identify your reservation on their systems. It can be found on your booking confirmation email and e-ticket. It may appear under different names such as ‘booking reference’, ‘reservation reference’, ‘booking code’, or ‘PNR’ (Passenger Name Record).

In case of any doubt, just upload your booking confirmation and our experts will identify the correct booking reference.

If you experience a flight cancellation or your flight is overbooked, the airline should offer you an alternative flight. They may also refer to this as a rerouting to your final destination.

The rerouting confirmation can be an email, or SMS, sent by the airline informing you about your flight disruption and offering an alternative flight. It will often include the e-ticket or boarding pass for that flight.

Airlines will always monitor the weather conditions along the entire flight route, and not just at the departure point — because even if the weather was good at your starting airport, it may not be the case at your destination. Adverse weather conditions and poor visibility along the flight path can seriously impact air passenger and staff safety and are valid grounds for delaying or canceling a flight.

However, we always double-check if the flight truly was delayed due to the weather. Bad weather conditions are a common reason for rejecting claims as these are considered extraordinary circumstances, and therefore do not qualify for compensation. That’s why we have our own independent systems to confirm weather reports and assess each claim individually.

E-ticket: Your e-ticket should have been emailed to the address you provided when you booked your flight. So unless you know you’ve deleted it, you should still have a copy of it in your email. Try searching for the airline’s name in your inboxes and your trash folder.

If you can’t find it, you can try downloading your e-ticket again after logging into the airline’s website, or contacting your airline’s customer support and asking for a copy.

Boarding pass: Certain airlines and courts require a boarding pass in order to process your claim. If you’re no longer able to download a copy of it by logging into your airline’s website, please contact the airline directly (or the Online Travel Agency you used to book the flight). Ask for a Boarding Certificate, which is equivalent to a boarding pass and can legally be used to process your case.

We always do our best to reply to each query as quickly as humanly possible, but due to the high volume of requests that we receive, it could take time for us to reply, so we ask for your continued patience. If you need immediate assistance, you can get in touch with us through our LiveChat.

If your claim includes a passenger who is under the age of 18, all documents will need to be signed by a parent or legal guardian on their behalf.

The parent or guardian should add the following annotation alongside their signature: “on behalf of [child’s name]”.

Some documents must be signed by both parents — we understand this isn’t always possible. In this case, please contact our friendly customer support via our Live Chat so our experts can help you find a solution.

It’s easy! After filing a claim with AirHelp, we will get in touch with you and ask you to upload some documents relating to your disrupted flight. Just click on the link provided and follow the onscreen instructions, which should look something like this:

• Log in to your Customer Dashboard.

• Click on the ‘Add Documents’ button and select the files you want to add from your computer.

• When you are done uploading all of the documents, click on the ‘Submit Now’ button.

Please note: the Customer Dashboard supports PNG, JPEG and PDF formats only.

Once the upload is complete you can see the names of the documents we have received from you under the ‘Uploaded documents’ header. You can also check if there are any documents we still need under the ‘Additional documentation needed’ header as shown below.

Note that some documents may require your hand-written, scanned signature. Please check the relevant instructions we send you via email.

We understand filling in forms and finding documents is a hassle – so we’ll keep your paperwork to a minimum by only asking you for the information that is essential to your claim.

Depending on the airline and the court jurisdiction, the paperwork required may differ – and some claims do require multiple documents. But don’t worry — your privacy is important to us, and we never share your personal information outside of the relevant parties, in accordance with GDPR. You can read our full privacy statement here.

If you find yourself stuck or have any questions regarding the documentation you need to provide, our customer support team will be happy to assist you via our LiveChat.

Of course. The AirHelp Team can update your contact details for you at any time.

To update your email address, telephone number, or home address simply log in to your Customer Dashboard and fill out our Contact Form. Make sure you select the ‘Update passenger details’ option, so we can process your request faster.

Alternatively, you can contact our friendly customer support via our Live Chat.

If you were denied boarding because the flight was overbooked, you are entitled to compensation, and you can file a claim.

Unfortunately, if you were denied boarding for a reason that was under your control, such as showing up late at the boarding gate, not having correct travel documents, or security-related matters, then you aren’t entitled to compensation.

If you think you have a valid reason why you couldn’t make your flight, we recommend that you contact the airline directly and explain your case. Sometimes, even though the airline isn’t legally obliged to pay, they might extend a different form of compensation (vouchers, discounts etc.) as a form of “goodwill”.

During the claims process, we need to share certain information with third parties, for example, airlines or lawyers. Your data is only shared with third parties whose job is to bring your claim to its conclusion.

We never share any of your details with a third party not involved in the claim process. If you are at all concerned about this matter, you can read the full details in our Privacy Policy.

Flight documents allow us to confirm your flight details. They are also required by third parties such as airlines and the court, who may ask for your boarding pass as proof that you checked in or boarded the plane, for example.

In some cases the airline is allowed to reduce the compensation by 50%. But this happens only if you were offered re-routing and the arrival time at the final destination did not exceed the scheduled arrival time of the flight originally booked:

• by 2 hrs in case of flights up to 1500 km

• by 3 hrs in case of flights between 1500 – 3500 km

• by 4 hrs in case of flights over 3500 km.

No. You can claim compensation even if you’re not a European citizen. Your citizenship does not impact your rights under EC 261/2004.

AirHelp is the world leader in the fight for air traveler’s rights, and we’ve been helping air travelers since 2013, so you’re in safe hands with us.

We win more flight compensation claims than anyone else in the industry, and we can help passengers around the globe thanks to our teams of legal experts in over 30 different countries.

We take out all the stress of making a claim — no more lengthy back-and-forths with the airlines. We combine the knowledge, expertise, and state-of-the-art technology to pursue each claim efficiently and successfully.

Plus, we operate on a no win, no fee basis, which means that using our service is entirely risk-free.

Of course! If you’ve been rejected, enter your flight details in our eligibility checker. There will be sections where you can provide us with information you’ve received from the airline regarding your initial claim (e.g. any emails or text messages from the airline). We can then investigate if you were wrongfully denied compensation. If we see that your flight qualifies, we’ll pursue your claim to get you your compensation.

We always encourage you to claim what you’re legally owed. Flight compensation regulations exist to protect passengers, help offset lost costs, and provide fair compensation for significant travel disruptions. You should be compensated because your time is valuable.

Our mission is to help you get the compensation you are entitled to after a disrupted flight. If you submit a claim via our website, our team of experienced agents will take care of the entire process on your behalf. That saves you the stress and paperwork of claiming by yourself.

You’ll also have the benefit of claiming with the world’s biggest and most successful claims company, with access to legal expertise in over 30 countries.

At AirHelp we operate on a no win, no fee basis, which means that we promise not to charge you unless we win your case – even if we go to court. That means there is zero risk to you and no advance payments required.

For detailed information about our terms of service, please refer to our Terms & Conditions.

We no longer have a mobile app. Instead, we’ve made our mobile website fast and easy to use. So you can submit claims and check your status via your mobile without having to download an app.