Passenger rights in the event of flight delays or cancellations
If your flight has been delayed or cancelled, you may be entitled to compensation and assistance from the airline. The Civil Aviation Authority the Netherlands (CAA NL), part of the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT), ensures that airlines in the Netherlands comply with passenger rights as laid out by the European Union (EU).
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Passenger rights in the event of flight delays or cancellations
There are various situations in which you may or may not have certain rights under EU rules. If you want to know what your rights are in the event of a flight delay, cancellation or overbooking, you can read more about:
- What your rights are in the event of a flight delay.
- What your rights are in the event of flight cancellation.
You can also read more about your rights in the event of flight delays or cancellations (in Dutch) on the rijksoverheid.nl website.
Other rules apply if you cancel your ticket yourself.
Submit your complaint to the airline first
Always submit your complaint or claim for a delayed or cancelled flight to the airline first. The airline must respond within 2 months.
If you are unable to reach an agreement with the airline or you have not received a response to your complaint after 2 months, you can report your complaint to CAA NL.
Please note: different rules apply to package holidays than to individual flight tickets. For a package holiday, the provider with whom you booked is responsible for handling your complaint. For advice on complaints about package holidays, contact ACM ConsuWijzer (in Dutch).
ACM ConsuWijzer is part of the Autoriteit Consument & Markt , ACM (Authority for Consumers and Markets). ACM ConsuWijzer provides free information about your rights as a consumer, monitoring whether companies comply with the rules and can intervene if they do not.
Submit your complaint to CAA NL
CAA NL does not handle individual compensation requests. However, you can submit your complaint to CAA NL using the online form Report a complaint about air passenger rights. You can do this up to 1 year after the flight.
CAA NL uses these complaints to oversee whether airlines are complying with the rules. If there are many complaints about the same airline, CAA NL will take this into account when overseeing airlines. If necessary, CAA NL can take measures, for example by imposing a fine.
After submitting your complaint
CAA NL will send a copy of your complaint to the airline. This allows the airline to contact you, but it is not obliged to do so. CAA NL does not handle or investigate your complaint individually. You will not receive a ruling on your complaint from CAA NL. However, you will receive information about your rights and what you can do in your specific situation.