FlightDelayHQ answers

Every answer below is aimed at a question people measurably search for, is written from named sources, and links to the page that handles the job itself. None of them is a landing page in disguise.

Seven answers to the questions a disrupted passenger actually types, each built from the instrument that decides it rather than from anybody's summary. Where a figure appears it is quoted from the regulation with the page and the date it was read, and where a regime carries no rule at all that absence is stated rather than filled in. Claiming direct with the airline costs nothing, and every page here says so before it mentions anything that does.

• Flight cancellation and delay: what a US airline owes you, and what it does not

  What the US rules give a passenger when a flight is cancelled or badly delayed, quoted from Title 14, and the three things they do not give at all.

• Flight cancellation compensation: a fixed sum in the UK, your fare back in the US

  When a cancelled flight carries a fixed payment under the retained UK Regulation, when it does not, and why the US answer is a refund instead.

• Bumped flight compensation: why volunteering and being denied are different claims

  What being bumped from an oversold flight pays under the US rules and the retained UK Regulation, and the one choice at the gate that ends the claim.

• Overbooked flight compensation: the US fare formula against the UK distance bands

  Why airlines sell more seats than they have, how the US payment is calculated from your fare and how late you arrive, and where the ceiling sits.

• Flight cancelled due to weather compensation: when flights cancelled due to weather still have to be paid for

  What the extraordinary-circumstances defence actually requires an airline to prove, and the rights a storm never takes away.

• What happens if you miss your connecting flight due to a delay: one booking or two decides it

  Why one booking and two bookings produce completely different answers when an inbound delay makes you miss the next flight.

• Flight delay compensation letter template: what to write to the airline, and what to attach

  The six facts a claim letter has to contain, the article to cite, and what to do with the reply. Claiming direct with the airline is free.