Cancelled flight? You have two separate claims, and airlines hope you only make one.

When a UK or EU flight is cancelled you always get your money back or a new flight, that part is unconditional. What airlines are quieter about is the second right: fixed compensation of £220 to £520 per passenger on top, when they cancelled late and the reason was theirs. Taking the replacement flight does not cancel it.

Right one: refund or rerouting, your choice

The choice is yours, not the airline's. Either a full refund of the unused ticket within 7 days, including other legs on the same booking that no longer make sense, or rerouting to your destination at the earliest opportunity. Earliest opportunity means exactly that: if your airline has nothing for two days but a rival flies tonight, you can insist on being booked onto the rival. Airlines rarely offer this unprompted. Ask for it by name.

While you wait for the replacement, the care rights apply as with delays: meals, drinks, and a hotel with transfers if you're stuck overnight. Keep receipts if the airline leaves you to fend for yourself.

Right two: compensation for short-notice cancellations

If the airline told you less than 14 days before departure, and the cause was within its control, you're owed the same fixed amounts as a 3-hour delay: £220, £350 or £520 by distance on UK departures, €250, €400 or €600 on EU ones, per passenger.

• • 14+ days' notice: no compensation, refund or rerouting only.
• • 7 to 13 days' notice: compensation is due unless the replacement they offered departs no more than 2 hours early and arrives under 4 hours late versus your original times.
• • Under 7 days' notice: compensation is due unless the replacement departs no more than 1 hour early and arrives under 2 hours late.

Note what that means: even a cancellation with a decent replacement flight can still pay out if the timings moved on you by more than those margins. Airlines count on nobody doing that arithmetic.

The "extraordinary circumstances" defence

As with delays, the airline escapes compensation (never the refund) when the cause was genuinely outside its control: severe weather, air traffic control restrictions, airport closures, strikes by airport staff or ATC. But technical faults, crew shortages, schedule knock-ons and strikes by the airline's own staff are all its problem, and courts have said so repeatedly. If the stated reason sounds vague, that's usually worth challenging.

Cancelled while you're mid-trip

If the cancellation strands you at a connection, you can choose rerouting onward, or a flight back to where you started plus a refund of the legs that became pointless. The compensation clock runs against your final destination on the original booking: arrive there 3+ hours later than planned and the short-notice rules above apply.

Keep the message that told you

The email, text or app notification announcing the cancellation is your key evidence, because it timestamps the notice period. Save it, screenshot it, and never delete the booking from the airline app until you're paid. Claims go back 6 years in England and Wales, 5 in Scotland.