Flight Delay and Cancellation Compensation in India 2026 — Your DGCA Rights Explained
By Kabir Malhotra (Kabir Malhotra writes about how Indian travel buyers actually pay — UPI vs credit card vs forex card surcharges, reward-point math on the top travel credit cards, RBI tokenisation, EMI-on-flights and the small fees that compound across a year of bookings.) · Published · 13 min read
When your IndiGo or Air India flight is delayed five hours and cancelled the next morning, the DGCA rules give you specific rupee compensation and meal entitlements. Here is exactly what you can claim.
Why most Indian flyers do not claim what they are owed
Every year, roughly 8 to 12 percent of scheduled commercial flights in India experience a material delay of two hours or more, with a smaller percentage outright cancelled. Of affected passengers, regulatory data suggests fewer than one in seven claims the compensation that DGCA's Civil Aviation Requirements (CAR) Section 3 Series M Part IV entitles them to. The reason is almost always a combination of not knowing the entitlement exists, not knowing how to claim, and accepting whatever the airline volunteers at the airport as final.
The rupee amounts at stake are not trivial. For a long-haul Mumbai-London cancellation where the airline cannot rebook within six hours, the regulated compensation is 10,000 rupees per passenger plus full refund plus meal voucher and hotel-stay if rebooking pushes to next day. For a family of four, that is over 40,000 rupees of compensation alone before the refund.
This guide walks through CAR Section 3 Series M Part IV in plain language, the airline-fault versus force-majeure distinction, the compensation tiers, meal-and-hotel entitlements, and the four claim channels — direct airline, AirSewa, DGCA portal and NCDRC. We close with EU 261 rights when flying from European cities.
The DGCA framework — CAR Section 3 Series M Part IV
The governing instrument is the DGCA's Civil Aviation Requirements, Section 3 Series M Part IV, last materially revised in 2016 and amended at the margins in 2022 and 2024. It applies to all scheduled commercial flights by Indian carriers (IndiGo, Air India, Air India Express, Akasa, SpiceJet, AllianceAir, Star Air) within India and to or from India. Foreign carriers are subject to the same rules for the India-leg portion, though enforcement is more complex.
The CAR establishes airline obligations across three primary scenarios:
- Denied boarding due to overbooking: Airline must first seek volunteers in exchange for compensation. If insufficient, the airline must pay regulated compensation plus refund or rebooking.
- Flight cancellation: Airline must offer refund or rebooking. If the cancellation was within the airline's control and not notified at least two weeks in advance, compensation is payable at the regulated scale.
- Flight delay: Meals after 2 hours, refund-or-rebook option after defined thresholds, hotel and ground transport for overnight delays.
The most important distinction is airline fault (operational, crew unavailability, equipment failure within airline control, scheduling decisions) versus force majeure (weather, ATC, security, government action, political unrest, fleet-wide grounding by regulator). Airline-fault cancellations or delays trigger compensation. Force majeure does not, though meal-and-rebooking entitlements still apply.
Compensation tiers — how much you are owed
For cancellation or denied boarding due to overbooking, regulated compensation in 2026 (unchanged since 2016) is structured by block time:
- Block time under 1 hour (short-haul domestic, e.g., Mumbai-Pune, Bangalore-Chennai): 5,000 rupees or one-way basic fare plus airline fuel charge, whichever is less.
- Block time 1 to 2 hours (medium domestic, e.g., Delhi-Mumbai, Bangalore-Delhi): 7,500 rupees or basic fare plus fuel charge, whichever is less.
- Block time over 2 hours (long-haul domestic and international): 10,000 rupees or basic fare plus fuel charge, whichever is less.
For denied boarding, the same scale applies plus refund or rebooking. If rebooking is within 1 hour of original scheduled departure, no compensation is payable.
For delays (flight does eventually operate):
- After 2 hours: Meal and refreshments proportional to wait time.
- After 6 to 12 hours (depending on flight length and time of day): Option of refund without penalty or rebooking on next available flight.
- Overnight delay (more than 6 hours starting between 8pm and 3am): Hotel accommodation and ground transport at airline expense.
The 2-hour meal threshold is the most commonly invoked entitlement and the one airlines proactively honour. Cancellation compensation is commonly ignored unless the passenger explicitly claims.
Airline fault versus force majeure — the question that decides everything
Compensation under the CAR is payable only if the cancellation or delay was within the airline's control. The CAR distinguishes between:
Airline-fault causes (compensation payable):
- Equipment failure where the airline did not have adequate maintenance redundancy.
- Crew unavailability due to scheduling errors, crew rest violation, illness without backup crew assignment.
- Operational reasons including aircraft routing failures, cargo loading delays, fuelling delays.
- Commercial decisions to cancel a flight for low load factor.
- Network ripple effects from prior airline-fault disruptions.
Force majeure causes (compensation NOT payable, though refund and rebooking still apply):
- Weather conditions including fog, thunderstorms, cyclonic disturbances, low visibility below operating minima.
- Air Traffic Control (ATC) restrictions due to runway congestion, airspace closure, security alerts.
- Government action including airspace closure for VIP movement, customs or immigration strike, regulatory directives.
- Security incidents including bomb threats, suspicious baggage, civil unrest at the airport.
- Industry-wide grounding of an aircraft type by the regulator (the 737 MAX grounding precedent applies).
- Strike action by airport operator (not by airline employees, which would be airline-fault).
The airline's claim of force majeure is sometimes contested. If your flight was delayed by 5 hours on a clear day with no obvious weather, no ATC notice, and no other operational reason visible, the airline-fault presumption is reasonable and you should push for compensation. If the airport-information display shows weather diversion of multiple flights, force majeure is plausible.
One important nuance: even in force majeure cases, the airline's duty to provide meals after 2 hours, hotel after overnight delays, and refund-or-rebooking optionality remains intact. Force majeure removes the cash compensation obligation, not the care-and-rebooking obligation.
How to actually claim — four channels
The DGCA framework provides four practical channels. Use them in order.
Channel 1 — Direct airline grievance. Start with the airline. Every carrier maintains a customer-relations email and in-app grievance form. IndiGo: customer.relations@goindigo.in. Air India: contactus@airindia.in. Akasa: queries.akasa@akasaair.com. SpiceJet: custrelations@spicejet.com. Submit a written complaint within 7 days citing the flight number, date, scheduled and actual times, the CAR provision invoked, and the compensation claimed. The airline must respond within 30 days. Payment is typically made within 60 days as bank transfer or travel voucher; the passenger has the right to insist on cash.
Channel 2 — AirSewa app and portal. AirSewa is the Indian government's official aviation-grievance platform at airsewa.gov.in. Submit the grievance, which routes to the airline with a tracked ticket number. Use this as the second step if the direct airline channel does not respond within 30 days.
Channel 3 — DGCA portal escalation. If AirSewa does not resolve, escalate to the DGCA at dgca.gov.in. The DGCA enforcement wing investigates compliance patterns and can levy airline penalties, though individual compensation is more reliably pursued via Channel 4.
Channel 4 — NCDRC and consumer forum. If the airline refuses to pay compensation clearly owed under CAR, file with the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission or the State Consumer Commission. Filing is online, fees are 200 to 4,000 rupees depending on claim value, and consumer-forum precedents have repeatedly held airlines liable plus mental-agony compensation of 5,000 to 50,000 rupees in egregious cases. Most cases settle before final order.
For most passengers, Channel 1 followed by Channel 2 resolves within 60 to 90 days.
Meals, hotel and ground transport during long delays
Care-and-assistance obligations during delays are independent of cash compensation. They apply regardless of whether the cause was airline-fault or force majeure.
After 2 hours: Meals or refreshments proportional to wait time. For most domestic and short-haul international, this is a meal voucher (typically 400 to 800 rupees) usable at airport food courts, or a packaged meal box. For longer delays, food continues at appropriate intervals.
Communication: Two telephone calls or equivalent (email or messaging) at airline expense. Rarely invoked given mobile phones, but the right exists.
Hotel accommodation (overnight delays 6+ hours starting 8pm to 3am): Hotel plus ground transport between airport and hotel at airline expense. Typically 3-star or 4-star near the airport. Airlines contract specific hotels at each major Indian airport.
Rebooking after defined thresholds: If delay exceeds 6 hours for short-haul or 12 hours for long-haul, the passenger has the right to a refund without cancellation penalty or rebooking on the next available flight at no charge. The passenger chooses, not the airline.
Hotel-and-meal entitlements are often not proactively offered — passengers must explicitly request them at the airport service desk, citing the delay duration and the CAR provision. Quoting "CAR Section 3 Series M Part IV" tends to produce faster compliance than a vague request.
EU 261 — your rights when flying from a European city
When you are flying from an EU airport (or from a UK airport under the UK261 equivalent retained post-Brexit) on any carrier including Indian carriers like Air India operating from Frankfurt, Paris, London or Munich, you are protected under Regulation EU 261/2004 instead of the Indian DGCA rules.
EU 261 compensation tiers:
- Short-haul (under 1,500 km): 250 EUR (approximately 22,000 to 24,000 INR).
- Medium-haul (1,500 to 3,500 km): 400 EUR (approximately 35,000 to 38,000 INR).
- Long-haul (over 3,500 km): 600 EUR (approximately 53,000 to 57,000 INR).
Compensation is payable for delays of 3 hours or more on arrival, cancellations with less than 14 days' notice, and denied boarding. Force majeure exceptions apply, but the European interpretation is stricter than India's — many causes an Indian carrier might claim as force majeure under DGCA are still compensable under EU 261.
EU 261 claims must be filed against the operating carrier regardless of which website you ticketed through. Claims can be filed up to 6 years after disruption (UK) or 2 to 3 years (varying by EU state). Specialised firms (AirHelp, ClaimCompass, Flightright) handle claims for a 25 to 35 percent success fee.
For an Indian flyer returning London to Delhi on Air India with a 5-hour Air-India-fault delay, EU 261 compensation of 600 EUR (about 55,000 INR) is payable. The Indian DGCA compensation of 10,000 rupees does not also apply — passengers cannot double-claim on the same disruption.
Documentation and the small habits that pay off
The single biggest difference between passengers who successfully claim and passengers who do not is documentation. Three habits dramatically improve your odds.
First, screenshot or photograph the scheduled and actual departure-time displays at the airport at the time of the disruption. The airline's later record of the delay may differ from what was displayed; your photo is contemporaneous evidence.
Second, keep boarding passes, baggage tags and the original e-ticket as PDF or printed copy. Even if the flight was eventually cancelled, the boarding pass or the gate-stamped attempt-to-board document establishes that you were present and entitled.
Third, request a written reason for the disruption from the airline at the airport. Airline staff will sometimes verbally claim weather or ATC when neither was the actual cause; getting it in writing forces the airline to commit to a specific reason that can be cross-checked against ATC and weather records.
You can verify whether your specific flight has historic on-time performance issues by searching the route on FlightGPT — chronic delay patterns on a specific flight number indicate operational rather than weather-driven causes.
For larger groups travelling together, designate one person to handle the claim paperwork. Pooling boarding passes and ticket evidence into a single claim file improves the success rate over individual claims that may have inconsistent documentation.
Frequently asked questions
How much compensation am I entitled to if IndiGo cancels my Delhi-London flight?
Under DGCA CAR Section 3 Series M Part IV, a cancelled flight with a block time over 2 hours (which Delhi-London certainly is) entitles you to 10,000 rupees compensation per passenger plus a full refund of the cancelled ticket, provided the cancellation was within the airline's control (operational, crew, equipment) and you were not notified at least 2 weeks in advance. If you were flying from London to Delhi instead, EU 261 / UK 261 applies and you are entitled to 600 EUR (approximately 53,000 to 57,000 INR) per passenger, which is significantly higher.
Does the DGCA compensation apply if my flight was cancelled due to weather?
No cash compensation, but the care-and-rebooking entitlements still apply. Force majeure (weather, ATC restrictions, security incidents, government action) removes the airline's cash-compensation obligation under the CAR. However, the airline is still required to offer either a refund or a rebooking on the next available flight, plus meals after 2-hour wait, hotel accommodation for overnight delays of 6+ hours starting between 8pm and 3am, and ground transport. The airline does not get to walk away from its care obligations on force-majeure grounds.
What is AirSewa and should I file a complaint there?
AirSewa is the Indian government's official aviation grievance portal, accessible at airsewa.gov.in and via the AirSewa mobile app. It routes your complaint directly to the airline with a tracked ticket number and applies pressure for response. It is recommended as the second step after attempting direct airline grievance resolution, particularly if the airline does not respond within 30 days. AirSewa is free to use and produces faster resolution than DGCA portal escalation for most individual passenger complaints.
Can I claim EU 261 compensation on my Air India flight from London?
Yes. EU 261 / UK 261 applies to all carriers departing from European or UK airports, regardless of the airline's nationality. An Air India London-Delhi delay of 3 hours or more on arrival, where the cause was within Air India's control, entitles you to 600 EUR per passenger. File the claim directly with Air India's UK customer relations team citing UK 261. If they refuse, specialised compensation firms (AirHelp, Flightright, ClaimCompass) handle the claim for a 25 to 35 percent success fee. Time limits are 6 years for UK 261, 2 to 3 years for EU 261 depending on member state.
If my flight is delayed 4 hours, am I entitled to a hotel room?
Usually no. The hotel entitlement under DGCA CAR triggers when the delay extends to a true overnight scenario — specifically, delays of 6 hours or more where the rebooked departure is between 8pm and 3am of the following day. A 4-hour delay during daytime gets you meal vouchers but not hotel accommodation. The exception is if the airline cancels the flight outright and the next available rebooking is the following morning, in which case the cancellation hotel-and-rebooking provisions apply.
How do I prove my flight was delayed for airline-fault rather than weather?
Document the airport at the time of the disruption. Take photos of the departure board showing your flight delay alongside other flights that were on time (indicating no widespread weather event). Photograph the actual airport conditions visible from the terminal windows. Request a written reason from the airline at the service desk; verbal claims of weather have no evidentiary weight. Cross-reference ATC notices and meteorological records (METAR data for the airport is publicly available) — if no weather event is recorded and other flights operated normally, the airline's force-majeure claim is rebuttable in consumer forum proceedings.