How long does an airline have to respond to your claim?

There's no single EU-wide law that forces an airline to respond to a compensation claim within a fixed number of days. In practice, most airlines aim to respond within a few weeks, and some national enforcement bodies publish their own expected turnaround times for airlines they oversee — but none of that changes your underlying legal entitlement. If the airline ignores your claim entirely, you can treat that the same way as a rejection and move on to escalation once you've given it reasonable time and sent a follow-up.

Why there's no universal deadline

EU261 and UK261 set out what airlines owe passengers, but they don't specify a statutory number of days within which an airline must reply to a claim. This is different from some other consumer contexts where a fixed response window is written into law. In practice, response times vary a lot by airline — some resolve straightforward, well-documented claims within a couple of weeks, others take considerably longer, and some effectively wait to see if you'll give up.

What's reasonable to expect

As a rough guide:

• A clean, well-documented claim (clear flight details, obvious eligibility, no dispute about what happened) is often acknowledged within a few weeks.
• Claims involving a disputed reason (e.g. the airline citing extraordinary circumstances) can take longer, since they may involve an internal review.
• Some airlines have a pattern of an initial auto-rejection, requiring a follow-up before a human actually looks at the file.

What to do while you wait

• Submit a complete claim the first time — flight number, date, route, what happened, and any supporting documents — so there's no easy excuse for delay.
• Keep records of every message, including dates sent and any reference numbers the airline gives you.
• Send a follow-up if you haven't heard back after a reasonable period — this also creates a paper trail showing you chased them.
• Don't let it drop — airlines are aware that a share of claimants simply give up if ignored for long enough.

What happens if the airline ignores you completely

Silence is not the same as having no case. If a reasonable amount of time has passed and you've followed up at least once without a substantive response, you can generally escalate the same way you would after an explicit rejection:

• Escalate to the relevant National Enforcement Body (or the CAA for UK261 claims).
• Use an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) scheme if the airline is a member of one.
• Consider small claims court or the equivalent procedure in the relevant jurisdiction.

Whichever route you take, the limitation period for bringing the claim keeps running regardless of how long the airline takes to respond — it doesn't pause just because they've gone quiet. That's one more reason not to let an unanswered claim sit indefinitely.

Frequently asked questions