What defines the end of a flight under EU law?
You’re sitting in an aircraft that has just landed. The pilot says the flight arrived two hours fifty-five minutes late. You think: under three hours, no compensation.
Wrong. What matters isn’t the touchdown — it’s the moment the aircraft doors open.
Why every minute is fought for
EC Regulation 261/2004 sets a sharp cut-off at “3 hours or more”:
- Delay 2 hours 59 minutes = €0
- Delay 3 hours 1 minute = up to €600
That’s why airlines push to interpret arrival time in their favour. Every aircraft costs hundreds of thousands of euros per hour of operation — if they can squeeze the official time under three hours, the airline saves tens of thousands of euros on a single delayed flight.
The landmark ruling: Germanwings v Henning
For years the definition of arrival time was unclear. Airlines argued the flight ended the moment the wheels touched the runway (touchdown).
The Court of Justice of the EU settled it with C-452/13 (Germanwings GmbH v Ronny Henning).
Official definition: “Arrival time is the moment at which at least one of the aircraft doors is opened, the assumption being that, at that moment, the passengers are permitted to leave the aircraft.”
Touchdown vs door opening: the minutes that decide
Model example — a flight from London to Hurghada with a charter carrier (over 1,500 km = €400 compensation):
Scheduled arrival: 14:00
| Phase | Time | Delay |
|---|---|---|
| Touchdown on runway | 16:55 | 2 hours 55 minutes |
| Stop at gate | 16:59 | 2 hours 59 minutes |
| Doors open | 17:02 | 3 hours 2 minutes |
The airline may claim the flight landed under 3 hours late. The entitlement is still there. A family of four would lose €1,600 if they took the airline at its word.
Connecting flights: where is the delay counted?
For connecting flights, the delay to the final destination is what matters.
Example: You fly London → Frankfurt → New York with Lufthansa. The first leg is 45 minutes late — you miss the connection. Lufthansa rebooks you on another flight and you arrive in New York 6 hours late.
Are you entitled to compensation? Yes. The whole journey is treated as one. What matters is the delay at the final destination — 6 hours. Full €600 compensation is on the table.
Watch out for separate tickets: this only applies to flights on a single booking (one PNR). If you bought two independent tickets, the first airline isn’t liable for the second leg.
What if the plane lands at a different airport (diversion)?
If the aircraft can’t land at the destination (because of fog, for example) and is diverted to another airport, your contract with the airline still stands. The delay is counted until the airline gets you to your original destination — regardless of where you physically got off.
Example:
- Landing at a diversion airport: 1 hour delay
- Waiting for a coach: 2 hours
- Coach to original destination: 1 hour
Total delay: 4 hours = compensation entitlement.
How to prove the length of the delay
Airlines have access to internal systems. Passengers have a phone. So what do you do?
While waiting in the aircraft: the moment your delay passes 3 hours, take a photo showing you’re still on board. Your phone’s metadata locks the exact time.
After the fact, without photos: doesn’t matter. Professional flight-tracking databases reconstruct the exact timeline of any flight — even one several years old. Refundio pulls this data on every case.