Picture this: You’re eagerly awaiting your flight, ready to embark on a well-deserved holiday or an important business trip. But then, the dreaded announcement comes – your flight is delayed or, even worse, cancelled. Flight disruptions are an unfortunate reality of air travel. According to the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE), which has tracked Australian domestic flights since November 2003, about one flight in five arrives 15 minutes or more behind schedule, and about 2 per cent are cancelled. Understanding your rights as a passenger in such situations is crucial.
Understanding Your Rights
When it comes to flight delays and cancellations, you have rights as a passenger, both under Australian law and international conventions.
Australian Law
There is no Australian statute that sets out air passenger rights the way the European regulation does, and no fixed sum payable for a late flight. Your rights come from two places.
The first is the Australian Consumer Law, which is Schedule 2 to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. A flight is a service, and services carry a guarantee that they will be supplied within a reasonable time. Where an airline breaches that guarantee you are entitled to a remedy, and where the breach is a major failure you can choose between a refund and a replacement service. You can also recover losses that were reasonably foreseeable, such as a pre-paid night of accommodation you could not use.
The second is the airline’s conditions of carriage, the contract you agree to when you book. Airlines set out there what they will do about meals, accommodation and rebooking. Those promises sit on top of the consumer guarantees and cannot contract out of them.
The Civil Aviation Act 1988 is sometimes cited as the source of these rights. It is not. That Act is about aviation safety and the functions of CASA, and it gives passengers no consumer entitlements at all.
A dedicated Aviation Consumer Ombuds Scheme and a Charter of Customer Rights are on the way. The Aviation Consumer Protection Bill 2026, which sets them up, was introduced into federal Parliament on 1 April 2026. Until the scheme is running, complaints go to the airline first, then to the Airline Customer Advocate or your state or territory consumer protection agency.
Airline Policies
In addition to legal requirements, individual airlines may have their own policies and procedures for handling delays and cancellations. It’s essential to familiarise yourself with your airline’s specific policies before flying. Here’s a brief overview of policies from some Australian airlines:
- Qantas: Publishes the support it gives when a delay or cancellation is within its control, such as meal vouchers, accommodation for an overnight disruption, and rebooking or a refund.
- Virgin Australia: Offers similar support, depending on the cause and length of the disruption.
- Jetstar: Offers more limited support, mainly rebooking on the next available flight and, in some cases, vouchers.
International Conventions
Most international travel to or from Australia is governed by the Montreal Convention 1999, given force in Australian law by the Civil Aviation (Carriers’ Liability) Act 1959.
Article 19 makes an airline liable for damage caused by delay, unless it proves that it took all measures that could reasonably be required to avoid the damage. That is liability for loss you can prove and document. The Convention does not oblige an airline to feed you or house you during a delay, and it sets no scale of payments by distance or hours late.
Liability for delay is capped at 6,303 Special Drawing Rights per passenger. The limits rose by about 18 per cent on 28 December 2024. The SDR is an International Monetary Fund unit of account rather than a currency, so the Australian dollar equivalent moves daily; ICAO put the delay cap at roughly US$8,400 when the new limits took effect.
The older Warsaw Convention still applies to a small number of routes where a country has not ratified the Montreal Convention. Its limits are lower.
Conditions for Claiming Compensation
What you can claim depends on whether the flight was domestic or international, and on what kind of disruption it was. In neither case is there a fixed amount.
Flight Delays
Duration Requirements
Domestic Flights: No length of delay triggers a payment. The question under the Australian Consumer Law is whether the flight was supplied within a reasonable time, and what the delay cost you. Airlines may add meal vouchers or accommodation for long delays under their own policies.
International Flights: The Montreal Convention sets no minimum delay either. The airline is liable for loss you can prove the delay caused, up to 6,303 SDRs per passenger. The three-hour mark quoted on many websites comes from the European regulation and does not apply to Australian flights.
Circumstances
Domestic Flights: A delay the airline could not reasonably have avoided, such as one caused by severe weather, is unlikely to breach the consumer guarantees, although the airline’s own policy may still offer help.
International Flights: The airline is not liable if it proves it took all the measures that could reasonably be required to avoid the loss, or that it was impossible to take them (Article 19). Technical faults and crew shortages are usually within its control; severe weather and air traffic control restrictions often are not.
Flight Cancellations
Notification Time
No Australian law sets a notice period for cancellations, and the 14-day rule you may have read about is European. What counts here is whether you received the service you paid for, and what the cancellation cost you.
Rebooking and Refunds
Domestic Flights: If the airline cancels your flight and you do not want the alternative it offers, you are generally entitled to a refund under the Australian Consumer Law. Most airlines’ conditions of carriage offer rebooking or a refund.
International Flights: The Montreal Convention does not deal with refunds or rebooking. Those come from the airline’s conditions of carriage and, where it applies, the Australian Consumer Law. The Convention covers loss the disruption caused, up to its limit.
Denied Boarding
- Overbooking: Airlines sell more seats than the aircraft holds, to allow for passengers who do not turn up. Most ask for volunteers first, usually in return for travel credit or a payment, but no Australian law requires them to.
- Compensation Options:
- Domestic Flights: Any set payment comes from the airline’s conditions of carriage. On top of that, the consumer guarantees entitle you to the flight you paid for or a refund, and to what the disruption cost you.
- International Flights: The Montreal Convention sets no fixed payment for being bumped. The airline is liable for loss you can prove the resulting delay caused, up to its limit.
What Compensation Is Actually Available
Australia has no equivalent of the European scheme that pays a set amount for a delayed flight. There is no table of figures to look up, and a table that shows you €250, €400 or €600 by distance is describing another country’s law. What you can recover here depends on which rules govern the flight.
On a domestic flight, you are claiming under the consumer guarantees: a refund or replacement service where the failure is major, plus reasonably foreseeable losses the delay caused you. Keep the receipts, because that is what the claim is built from.
On an international flight, you are claiming proven loss under Article 19 of the Montreal Convention, up to 6,303 SDRs per passenger. The same principle applies: the extra hotel night, the missed transfer, the connection you had to rebook.
Where the European figures come from
Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 is the source of nearly every compensation table online, and it does pay fixed sums of €250 to €600. It can apply to an Australian traveller, but only where the flight departs from an airport in the EU, or arrives in the EU on an EU carrier. The United Kingdom keeps its own version of the same rules after leaving the EU.
A Brisbane to Sydney service is not covered. Neither is a Qantas flight from Sydney to London. A Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Singapore is, because it leaves an EU airport.
Exceptions and Special Cases
While the Montreal Convention and Australian consumer laws provide strong protections for passengers, there are certain exceptions and special cases where airlines may be exempt from paying compensation, or the rules may differ.
Delays the Airline Could Not Avoid
Australian law has no list of “extraordinary circumstances”. That phrase, and the lists that go with it, come from the European regulation. On an international flight the test is Article 19 of the Montreal Convention: the airline is not liable for loss caused by delay if it proves it took all the measures that could reasonably be required to avoid it, or that it was impossible to take them. On a domestic flight, a delay the airline could not reasonably have avoided is unlikely to breach the consumer guarantees.
Causes that often meet that test include:
- Severe weather
- Natural disasters, such as volcanic ash
- Air traffic control restrictions
- Security threats
- Airport closures
Mechanical faults and crew shortages usually do not, because keeping aircraft serviceable and flights crewed is within the airline’s control.
Australian law does not require an airline to hand out meals or book hotels during a delay. Many airlines do so under their own policies when the cause was within their control, so ask. If you pay for these yourself, keep the receipts: they are part of what you can claim if the delay breached a consumer guarantee.
Code-Share Flights and Partner Airlines
On a code-share flight, the airline that sold you the ticket and the airline that operated the flight can both be responsible. Under the Montreal Convention you can claim against either of them, or both (Articles 40 and 45).
Check the terms of your ticket and the policies of both airlines, and send your claim to both if you are unsure which one to approach.
Connecting Flights
If all your flights are on one booking, the Montreal Convention treats the journey as a whole. You claim against the airline on whose flight the delay happened (Article 36), and your loss can include what the missed connection cost you, even if the next flight was with a different airline.
If you booked the flights separately, each airline is responsible only for its own flight, so the cost of missing a connection on a separate ticket usually falls on you.
Rights during Tarmac Delays
Australia has no tarmac-delay rules of the kind the United States has. The time you spend on board counts towards the delay for any claim, and the airline still owes passengers on board a duty of care. In practice airlines provide toilets, ventilation and water, and let passengers disembark when a long delay allows it and it is safe to do so.
Steps to Claim Compensation
If your flight was delayed, cancelled, or you were denied boarding, you may be entitled to compensation. Here’s how to go about it:
Documentation: The Key to a Strong Claim
Maintaining meticulous records is essential for a successful compensation claim. Keep these documents safe:
- Boarding Pass & Booking Confirmation: These prove you were a passenger on the affected flight.
- Correspondence with the Airline: Any emails, letters, or text messages related to the disruption.
- Evidence of Expenses: Receipts for meals, accommodation, alternative transportation, or any other expenses incurred due to the delay or cancellation.
- Incident Reports: If you filed a report with the airline or any other authority, keep a copy.
- Medical Records (if applicable): If you sustained an injury, keep all medical reports and bills related to your treatment.
Contacting the Airline
The first step is to contact the airline directly to request compensation:
- Initial Contact: Reach out to the airline’s customer service department via phone, email, or their online complaint form. Clearly explain the situation, providing your flight details, the nature of the disruption, and the compensation you’re seeking.
- Complaint Process: If the initial contact doesn’t yield a satisfactory response, follow the airline’s formal complaint process. This typically involves submitting a written complaint with supporting documentation.
- Record Keeping: Keep a record of all communications with the airline, including dates, times, and the names of any representatives you speak with. This can be useful if you need to escalate your claim.
Escalating the Claim
If you’re unable to resolve the issue directly with the airline, you have options for escalating your claim:
- Airline Customer Advocate: The ACA handles complaints about Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin Australia if you are not happy with the airline’s answer. It can help broker an outcome, but it cannot make an airline pay.
- Consumer Protection Agency: Your state or territory agency, in Queensland the Office of Fair Trading, can take up a complaint under the Australian Consumer Law.
- Interim Aviation Ombudsperson: The federal government has an interim ombudsperson for complaints still unresolved after those steps. Until the new scheme is legislated, the role has no formal powers to decide a complaint.
- Legal Action: If all else fails, you may need to consider taking legal action against the airline. Consulting with a lawyer specialising in aviation law can help you understand your options and the potential for pursuing a claim in court.
Frequently Asked Questions
What compensation can I expect for a delay of three hours?
On a domestic flight, no set amount. Three hours is not a threshold in Australian law the way it is in Europe. What matters is whether the airline supplied the service within a reasonable time, and what the delay actually cost you. An international flight works the same way under the Montreal Convention: you recover loss you can prove, up to the per-passenger cap, rather than a fixed sum tied to how late you were.
How does compensation work for international flights?
Most international flights to and from Australia are covered by the Montreal Convention, and it does not pay fixed amounts. The airline is liable for loss you can prove the delay caused, such as an extra night’s accommodation or a missed tour, up to 6,303 SDRs per passenger, unless it proves it took all the measures that could reasonably be required to avoid the delay.
Can I get compensation for a missed connection due to a delay?
If the flights were on one booking, yes: you can claim against the airline whose flight was delayed for what the missed connection cost you, even if the next flight was with a different airline. If you booked the flights separately, the cost of the missed connection usually falls on you.
What if the delay was due to weather conditions?
Usually you cannot claim for it. On an international flight the airline is not liable if it proves it took all reasonable measures to avoid the delay, and severe weather often meets that test. On a domestic flight, a delay the airline could not reasonably have avoided is unlikely to breach the consumer guarantees. Ask anyway: many airlines help with rebooking, and some with meals or accommodation, whatever the cause.
How long do I have to file a compensation claim?
International2 years from arrivalDomestic delaysgenerally 6 years
It depends on the flight. On an international flight covered by the Montreal Convention, the right to damages ends two years after you arrived, or should have arrived, at your destination (Article 35), and a court cannot extend it. On a domestic flight, a claim for what a delay or cancellation cost you, under the Australian Consumer Law or your contract with the airline, generally has six years. The two-year limit you may see quoted for domestic flights applies to injury and baggage claims under the Civil Aviation (Carriers’ Liability) Act 1959, not to delays.
What are my rights if I’m denied boarding due to overbooking?
There is no fixed payment in Australian law. Under the Australian Consumer Law you are entitled to the flight you paid for or a refund, and to what being bumped cost you; on an international flight, the Montreal Convention covers loss caused by the resulting delay, up to its limit. Many airlines also offer a set payment or travel credit to passengers bumped against their will, so ask.
What are my rights during tarmac delays?
Australia has no specific tarmac-delay rules. The time on board counts towards the delay for any claim, and airlines generally provide toilets, ventilation and water, and let passengers off when it is safe to do so.
Flight delays and cancellations can be frustrating and disruptive, but knowing your rights as a passenger is crucial. If you experience a significant delay, cancellation, or denied boarding, you may be entitled to compensation and assistance from the airline. Remember to keep all relevant documentation, contact the airline promptly, and seek legal advice if needed. By being informed and proactive, you can ensure that your travel disruptions don’t leave you out of pocket or without recourse.
[1] Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE). Airline on-time performance: monthly reports and time series data. [source]
[2] Civil Aviation Act 1988. [source]
[3] Qantas, Compensation and Refunds Policy. [source]
[4] Virgin Australia, Guest Compensation Policy. [source]
[5] Jetstar, Compensation and Refunds. [source]
[6] Montreal Convention (1999), set out in Schedule 1A to the Civil Aviation (Carriers’ Liability) Act 1959. [source]
[7] Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Travel Delays and Cancellations. [source]
[8] Choice, Flight cancellations and delays: What are my rights? [source]
[9] Airline Customer Advocate (ACA). [source]
[10] Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council, establishing common rules on compensation and assistance to passengers in the event of denied boarding and of cancellation or long delay of flights. [source]