Had a delayed or cancelled flight with Air France?
You’ve come to the right place.
According to EU Regulation 261/2004, passengers victim of a disrupted flight with France’s national air carrier can claim compensations of up to 600€.
As travellers ourselves, we know how bad it feels when your travel plans are ruined because of the airline. We’ve already helped thousands of passengers like yourself get compensation from Air France.
We seek to assist even more air travellers get the money they deserve for their trouble and help them learn about their air passenger rights, to ensure that they are never cheated out of compensation by the airline.
In this guide, you will learn:
Air France flights get delayed and when they do, you need to know what to do to make the most of the situation.
Start by storing your travel documents somewhere safe. Don’t throw them away in a fit of rage, you’ll be sorry later. When submitting a compensation claim, you need to provide your flight details such as flight number and booking reservation, but also your travel documents (boarding pass, booking confirmation), including the paper ones.
Get to the airline’s desk at the airport and ask the reason for the delay. Request a written document attesting the cause of the delay, if the airline can provide one.
If the delay extends to at least 3 hours, you may ask the airline to provide you with a meal and refreshment. This is part of your “right to care”, as described by EC261. Don’t be surprised if the airline gives you a food voucher instead, you can use it at one of the restaurants of the airport.
Note that in addition to this meal, the airline must let you make up to two phone calls for you to make arrangements. For instance, you might need to call the car rental company or the hotel to warn them about this change of arrival time.
Once you reach your final destination, check the length of the delay. If it’s more than 3 hours, there’s a good chance that you're entitled to compensation for flight delay.
Uee our free Flight Delay Compensation Calculator to know if you’re eligible in less than 3 minutes:
You might be entitled to up to 600€ from the airline!
Because Air France operates both short and long-haul flights, the flight delay compensation amount paid by the French air carrier ranges from 250 to 600€.
As a rule of thumb, how much you’re entitled to for a flight delay varies according to the flight distance, like so:
A couple of special cases deserve mention.
First, for a delayed intra-community flight longer than 3,500km, you are entitled to 400€ (and not 600€). For instance, if your flight from Paris to La Reunion is delayed by more than 3 hours, you will be entitled to 400€, even though the distance between Paris and La Reunion is longer than 3,500km.
Secondly, if the delay of a flight longer than 3,500km is “only” between 3 and 4 hours, Air France is allowed to reduce the compensation amount by 50%. So you’d receive 300€ instead of 600€.
The easiest option to know how much to claim is to use our Flight Delay Compensation Calculator.
Yes, you can receive compensation if you missed your connection because of a flight delay with Air France.
There are, however, certain conditions that determine whether you’re eligible or not.
Your tickets must have been bought together and be under the same reservation number (also known as booking number or PNR).
If you bought your tickets separately, you won’t be able to claim missed connection compensation. That’s because when you do so, you are responsible for organizing the transfer yourself and plan for enough connection time.
For you to be eligible, the initial delay that caused you to miss your connecting flight must have been Air France’s fault. If the delay was the result of extraordinary circumstances, Air France is not liable to pay compensation. Those include air traffic restrictions, bad weather (or, more accurately, adverse weather conditions), medical emergencies like the coronavirus, strikes, etc.
Yes, you can get a refund if your Air France flight hasn’t departed 5 hours after the original departure time.
Note that a refund for flight delay is different from a compensation in that to claim compensation, your flight must arrive at least 3 hours late, while for a refund, it’s the long delay at departure that matters.
Depending on the stage of your journey, you will receive either a full or partial refund:
Unlike flight delay compensations, refund amounts are calculated based on the price of your ticket.
If the airline doesn’t offer you an alternative flight when notifying you about the cancellation, request to be rerouted.
Should you need to wait for more than 2 hours at the airport before the departure of your rerouting flight, you can ask for a meal and refreshment. Sometimes, however, passengers whose flight was cancelled are rebooked on a flight departing 6 hours later, or on the next day. If that’s your case, Air France must provide you with hotel accommodation and transportation between there and the airport at no extra cost to you.
Finally, if you reach your destination at least 3 hours late because of a cancelled Air France flight, EC261 states that you can claim up to 600€ per passenger as flight cancellation compensation.
The flight cancellation compensation amount varies depending on:
If you’ve booked your flight directly from Air France (online on airfrance.com or at a ticket office), you can cancel your ticket within 24 hours, for free.
Cancelling a flight past those 24 hours will incur a fee.
Note that during the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, you can cancel your ticket purchased before April, 16 2020 and get a travel voucher by filling out this form. However, you should know that the European Union has weighed in on the refund VS travel voucher debate, urging airlines to return money and not voucher to their customers.
You can call Air France using the following number: 00 33 9 69 39 36 54
During the coronavirus outbreak, you are encouraged to contact Air France via their online form rather than phone calls, as they already receive numerous phone calls.
Keep in mind that you’re NOT entitled to compensation for cancelled flight due to COVID-19.
Premium Economy is a travel class on Air France flights that is an upgrade compared to basic Economy. Travellers benefit from more legroom and space, as well as a quieter cabin that’s less crowded. The seats on Premium Economy are also more comfortable than in Economy.
IATA code: AF
ICAO code: AFR
Air France is the French flag carrier and largest airline of the Air France-KLM group, as well as a founding member of the SkyTeam alliance.
Founded in 1933, it is headquartered in Tremblay-en-France, Air France main hubs are Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) and Orly Airport (ORY).
Air France operates both domestic and international flights, covering over 175 destinations. It is one of the largest European airlines.
The tab below provides specific data regarding the airline's on-time performance. It includes the amount of flights operated by the airline each month, which portion of these flight arrived on time (i.e with less than 15 minutes delay), which portion consists of delayed flights, and the average delay of their flights in minutes. Source: Flightstats.com
With less than 24% of flights arriving late on average, the French airline is in the industry average. When delays occur, passenger can expect to arrive 45 minutes late on average - but don’t forget that you are only eligible to compensation when your flight is delayed by 3 hours or more. A brief look at Air France’s flight data by quarter shows a slight drop of their on-time performance along the year - except during the last quarter, which registers Air France's best performance during the year. Furthermore, the average delay is also decreasing, which is a good thing for travellers. Air France’ on-time performance can be qualified as slightly aboveaverage, with a rating of 5.1 out of 10.
When it comes to processing flight compensation claims, the performance of Air France can be qualified as above average, if not good. You can take a look at the table below to get an idea of how fast they deal with compensation claims:
Despite being one of the largest airlines in the world, Air France provides a statement relatively quickly, once the compensation claim for flight delayed or cancelled has been submitted. They are a bit faster than the average to process the claim and pay the compensation when it is due. It takes on average 10 weeks to secure your compensation from Air France (65 days). In addition, Air France is honest when providing reasons for the disruption of their flights. If compensation is due, the airline will pay it. As a result, there are extremely few cases that require claimants to go to court against Air France. Keep in mind that these data represent averages: some problematic cases can take much longer. Because some cases are more complicated, they need to be sent to the court or a National Enforcement Body (NEB). In those cases, the processing time is significantly longer. Our experts are used to dealing with Air France and work hard to secure your compensation in as little time as possible.
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