If you missed a connection because your first flight was late, compensation depends on one thing above all: whether your flights were booked together as a single journey. If they were, the delay is measured when you reach your final destination, and you may be owed compensation if you arrive three hours or more late. If you booked two separate tickets, the rules are much less favourable.
Last updated: 5 October 2026.
The European Commission's guidelines explain, based on the case law, that if a journey consists of several flights booked as a single unit, the flights are considered as a whole. To decide whether EU261 applies, the place where the journey started and the final destination must be taken into account, regardless of any stopovers (Case C-537/17, Wegener; Case C-436/21, flightright).
The Regulation defines the "final destination" as the destination on the ticket presented at check-in or, for directly connecting flights, the destination of the last flight (Article 2(h)). A delay is therefore measured against the scheduled arrival time at that last destination (Case C-11/11, Folkerts).
Practical result: if you missed a connection and reached your final destination three hours or more late, you are in principle entitled to compensation, as long as the journey was booked together and EU261 applies to it, whether the airline operating the connecting flights is an EU airline or not.
For a long delay at the final destination, the distance that fixes the compensation is the great-circle distance between the place of departure and the final destination, not the sum of the distances of each leg (Case C-559/16, Bossen). This applies even if only the second leg was delayed, or if the delay was caused by the cancellation of a second leg operated by another airline. See how the amount is calculated.
The Court has made clear that any operating airline that took part in at least one of the connecting flights is liable to pay, whether or not its own flight caused the delay (Case C-502/18, České aerolinie). Examples from the guidelines:
The Court has also confirmed that no special legal relationship between the airlines is needed. If a travel agency combined flights operated by separate airlines and charged an overall price on a single ticket, the whole is a connecting flight under EU261 (Case C-436/21, flightright).
If you booked two separate tickets for two consecutive flights and the first was late, so that you could not check in on time for the second, the second airline is not obliged to pay compensation. According to the guidelines, however, if the delay of the first flight was over three hours, you may be entitled to compensation from the airline that operated that first flight.
This is a different situation: denied boarding. Passengers on connecting flights must be compensated if, under a single contract of carriage with directly connecting flights and a single check-in, they are denied boarding because the first flight was delayed and the airline mistakenly expected them not to arrive in time (Case C-321/11, Rodríguez Cachafeiro). Denied boarding gives compensation without the extraordinary-circumstances defence.
Not if your journey started at an EU airport and the flights were booked as one unit. The Court has accepted that a disruption on a connecting flight outside the EU can fall within the scope of the Regulation (Case C-537/17, Wegener).
The test is whether the flights were booked as a single unit under one reservation. Two separate tickets for two consecutive flights are treated differently, as described above.
The delay when you reach your final destination, measured against the scheduled arrival time at the destination of the last flight.
This guide is general information based on the sources above, not legal advice.
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