Booking an airline ticket these days can often feel like a test of endurance. To get to the true cost of an airfare, passengers must often navigate endless add-ons and upsells for everything from fare tiers and priority boarding to carry-on bags, checked luggage, and seat choice.
The industry jargon for this is “unbundling.” Once the domain of budget airlines, the practice of taking services traditionally included in the price of a ticket and charging for them individually is now the norm even among legacy carriers.
This summer, European lawmakers pushed back.
After 13 years of fraught negotiations, the European Parliament recently approved the biggest update to EU261, its airline passenger-rights rules first established in 2004 that cover all flights departing the EU and flights arriving in the EU when operated by an EU carrier. Despite intense pressure from the airline industry to weaken them, lawmakers kept existing protections intact and went even further, adding a raft of new rights covering everything from price transparency and family seating to compensation claims.
“We can improve them, we can make them better, but we cannot make them worse,” said Andrey Novakov, an MEP from Bulgaria and Parliament’s lead negotiator on the reforms, in a January debate.
The three-hour flight disruption trigger for compensation remains, with eligible passengers still entitled to €250 to €600 (US$292 to $702) for qualifying delays and cancellations. Airlines must still provide food and drink during long delays, as well as hotel accommodation and transportation when an overnight stay is necessary.
Parliament didn’t stop there. Here’s what air passengers gain with the new rules, which are expected to go into effect by the end of 2027:
No more hidden carry-on fees
Passengers are now guaranteed one small personal item free of charge measuring 40x30x15 cm (about 16x12x6 inches). While many carriers already offer this, lawmakers wanted to establish an EU-wide minimum below which airlines cannot shrink their free allowance.
The more significant change is to price transparency. Despite some headlines billing the reform as “free hand luggage,” the rules do not require airlines to include a larger carry-on for free. Instead, airlines and other travel platforms will now have to display by default, at the start of the booking process, a fare that includes a carry-on, making it easier for travelers to compare like-for-like prices. They can still offer a cheaper fare without one.
Families and vulnerable passengers get stronger seating protections
Children under 14 must now be seated next to an accompanying adult at no extra charge. The same protection applies to people accompanying passengers with disabilities, reduced mobility, or those who are pregnant.
A ban on the “no-show clause” and fewer admin fees
The new rules also stop airlines from turning basic administrative tasks into yet another opportunity to charge passengers. Airlines can no longer charge fees to correct reasonable booking errors, such as misspelled names, or for a printed boarding pass if passengers have already checked in. Nor can passengers be denied boarding because they printed their own copy of a digitally issued boarding pass.
The updated rules also ban the “no-show clause,” which allowed airlines to cancel a passenger’s return flight or charge them to board it if they missed the outbound flight.
Claiming should get easier, but deadlines are shorter
Airlines must send disrupted passengers clear instructions on how to claim compensation and have 30 days to pay or explain why a claim has been rejected. The revised rules also set out a clear list of “extraordinary circumstances,” such as severe weather, war, unruly passengers, or airport and air traffic control strikes, when compensation is not payable. In one concession to airlines, the updated law cuts the time passengers have to start a claim to nine months, replacing national deadlines that in some countries extended to six years.
The new rules won’t put an end to unbundling or upsells. Airlines will still have plenty of opportunities to make money from optional extras. But European lawmakers have drawn a clearer line on what can legitimately be charged for and what passengers should be able to expect in the price of a ticket.
