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Flight Delays and Cancellations in Cyprus: Rights and Compensation

What Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 provides when a flight from Cyprus is delayed or cancelled: care at the airport, reimbursement, compensation from 250 to 600 euros and where to complain.

Cyprus InformEditorial team

26 October 2026 10 min read

Flight Delays and Cancellations in Cyprus: Rights and Compensation

Checked: 25 October 2026.

Delays and cancellations: in brief

In the European Union, passenger rights when a flight is delayed or cancelled, or boarding is denied, are set out in Regulation (EC) No 261/2004. It applies to all flights departing from Larnaca and Paphos airports, whatever the airline.

If your flight was cancelled without timely notice or you reached your final destination three hours or more late, the airline may be obliged to pay compensation of 250, 400 or 600 euros. The exception is extraordinary circumstances, but you are still entitled to care at the airport.

Below we explain when the Regulation applies, what you are entitled to at the airport and after a cancellation, how much compensation is payable, when it is not paid and where to complain in Cyprus.

When the Regulation applies

Under Article 3, the Regulation covers all passengers departing from an airport in an EU country; on flights from a non-EU country to an EU airport, it applies only if the flight is operated by an EU airline and the passenger did not receive compensation and assistance in that country.

You need a confirmed reservation and, except when the flight is cancelled, you must check in on time or, if no time is given, no later than 45 minutes before departure. Passengers travelling free of charge or on reduced fares not available to the public are not covered, but the Regulation does cover tickets bought with loyalty-programme miles.

Since the UK left the EU, it matters who operates the flight. According to the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), departures from the UK are covered by the British UK261 rules, while the EU Regulation applies to flights from the UK to Cyprus only when they are operated by EU airlines; do not count on being paid under both regimes at once.

Care at the airport

Article 6 requires the airline to offer passengers care if departure is delayed by two hours or more on flights of up to 1,500 km, by three hours or more on intra-EU flights over 1,500 km and other flights of 1,500 to 3,500 km, and by four hours or more on all other flights.

Under Article 9, you are entitled free of charge to meals and refreshments in reasonable relation to the waiting time, hotel accommodation if departure is moved to the next day, transport between the airport and the hotel, and two telephone calls or emails. In case C-12/11 McDonagh, the Court of Justice of the EU ruled that this care is due even in extraordinary circumstances, with no time or monetary limit.

If the airline has not arranged care, buy reasonably priced items and keep the receipts: you can claim these costs back. Ask for a written notice of your passenger rights (under Article 14 the airline must provide one in cases of denied boarding, cancellation or a delay of two hours or more) and for a written explanation of the reason for the delay to support your claim.

Cancellations and delays of five hours or more

If a flight is cancelled, under Article 8 the passenger chooses one of three options: reimbursement of the full cost of the ticket within seven days, re-routing to the final destination at the earliest opportunity, or re-routing at a later date at the passenger’s convenience, subject to availability of seats. If departure is delayed by five hours or more, you can choose not to travel and have your ticket reimbursed.

Under Article 5, no compensation for cancellation is due if the passenger was informed at least two weeks before departure, or was informed later but offered re-routing within the time limits set by the Regulation.

These rights cannot be waived in advance: under Article 15, the airline’s obligations may not be limited by the terms of the contract of carriage. Under Article 7, a voucher instead of money is allowed only with the signed agreement of the passenger, so do not accept one automatically.

Compensation amounts

Under Article 7, compensation is 250 euros for flights of up to 1,500 km, 400 euros for intra-EU flights over 1,500 km and other flights of 1,500 to 3,500 km, and 600 euros for all other flights. Distance is measured by the great circle route to the final destination, and compensation is paid per passenger. If, after a cancellation or denied boarding, the passenger was re-routed and arrived no more than two, three or four hours after the scheduled arrival time, depending on the distance, the compensation may be reduced by 50%.

Airlines began paying compensation for delays after the Court of Justice of the EU’s 2009 judgment in Sturgeon (C-402/07): a passenger who reaches the final destination three hours or more late may claim the same amount as for a cancellation, unless the delay was caused by extraordinary circumstances. The exception is flights over 3,500 km other than intra-EU flights (those get 400 euros): according to Your Europe, for an arrival delay of three to four hours, compensation on these flights is 300 euros, not 600.

On flights covered by the UK261 rules, according to the CAA, compensation is £220 for distances of up to 1,500 km and £350 for 1,500 to 3,500 km; on longer flights it is £260 for a delay of three to four hours and £520 for a longer delay.

Extraordinary circumstances

Under Article 5 and the Sturgeon judgment, the airline is not obliged to pay compensation if it can prove that the cancellation or delay was caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. According to the preamble to the Regulation, such circumstances may occur, in particular, in cases of political instability, meteorological conditions incompatible with the operation of the flight, security risks, unexpected flight safety shortcomings and strikes, and as a result of an air traffic management decision in relation to a particular aircraft on a particular day.

Under the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU, each case is assessed individually. A strike by the airline’s own staff, including a wildcat strike, is as a rule not regarded as extraordinary under cases C-195/17 and C-28/20, unless the strikers’ demands can only be met by the public authorities. Strikes by air traffic controllers or airport staff may be recognised as extraordinary, while a technical fault in the aircraft, under C-549/07 Wallentin-Hermann and Sturgeon, does not usually release the airline from paying compensation.

One example is the failure of the flight planning system of NATS, the UK air traffic control (ATC) service, on 28 August 2023. The CAA considered it most likely to be an extraordinary circumstance but pointed out that passengers were still entitled to a refund or re-routing, meals and hotel accommodation.

How to make a claim in Cyprus

First, contact the airline that operated the flight, in writing or through its online form. Keep your boarding passes, booking confirmation, receipts and the written explanation of the reason for the delay: you will need them at every stage.

If the airline refuses or, as the EU’s Your Europe portal puts it, does not reply within two months, you can complain to the Department of Civil Aviation of Cyprus, the national enforcement body. According to the European Commission, complaints are accepted at [email protected]; according to the Department itself, your booking and correspondence with the airline should be attached to the EU complaint form.

The Department deals with flights departing from Cyprus and flights by EU airlines arriving in Cyprus from third countries; it is not a court, and you can still go to court. According to the Council of the EU, the new rules adopted in 2026 will start to apply in autumn 2027; according to the European Commission, they do not change the compensation amounts or the three-hour threshold.

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Official sources

An arrivals board with cancelled flights at Heathrow, April 2010 · Photo: KTo288 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · converted to WebP and resized.

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