How it works

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Step 1: You tell us about your flight irregularity

Has your flight been delayed or cancelled? If so, we are happy to hear about the incident through our online form. It just takes a few minutes.

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Step 2: We check your eligibility for our service

Our online form automatically determines whether you qualify for our direct compensation payment.

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Step 3: We pay out the promised amount

Once you have sent us the documentation regarding your flight irregularity, we will pay out up to € 450 in return for your claim to a compensation.

How much compensation do we pay out

Answers to frequently asked questions

In case your flight is delayed or cancelled, Refund Pilot will pay you out fast and reliably: We transfer your compensation to your bank account in record time while deducting a considerably lower fee than other passenger rights companies such as Airhelp and Flightright.

If you have been affected by a flight irregularity or seek a refund for a booking you had to cancel, just check your eligibility for free by filling out our online firm and uploading your travel documentation. We will examine your case immediately and pay out the promised amount without delay after confirming your entitlement.

The traditional approach to legal disputes proves disproportionately complicated and strenuous if you are trying to assert a small caim. Since conventional law firms lack automatized tools to analyze your case in real time online, handing it to a lawyer will cost you more time assembling the evidence and summarizing the facts of the case. Moreover, you will have to pay in advance and your refund for your attorney’s fee will depend on whether your claim can be enforced successfully. On the other hand, we as a claim company will pay you out directly and will not bother you afterwards – regardless of how our dispute with the airline turns out afterwards.

Of course, you can. However, according surveys on customer experiences airlines falsely reject legitimate claims or do not respond at all in 7 out 10 cases. Often, they present seemingly valid reasons as to why they are not obligated to pay that are difficult to falsify for passengers without access to special flight data bases and without in-depth knowledge of aviation. As airlines therefore refuse to pay voluntarily in numerous cases, it will typically become indispensable to file a lawsuit to receive a compensation.

Even after years of frequent legal disputes, we as professionals still must take legal action in more than half of our cases, too. As you can imagine, this may well be a necessity when individual passengers seek to assert their rights. For those who wish to avoid the effort, the legal costs and the risk of possibly losing at court, we offer a stress-free alternative.

As soon as we confirm your online application by e-mail (typically hours after you complete the form), we will ask you for the bank account to which we shall transfer the promised amount. Once you have provided us with the respective information, you receive the compensation for which you have applied within days – typically we authorize the payment within 24 hours.

Refund Pilot’s service follows one basic principle: In exchange for your claim to compensation, we make a payment to you rather than you to us. Therefore, it is completely free of charge to use our online form to determine your eligibility for our direct compensation and to apply for it.

Moreover, the payout sums we outline here on this website and promise to applicants already take into account our fee. In effect, there will be no further deduction and no hidden costs. If we determine that you qualify to use our service, you can expect to receive the indicated amount completely. Besides, you do not have to bear any costs either if we must reject your application or if you choose to revoke it.

If you want to learn more about our rates and payout sums, please refer to the respective subpage here.

Please refer to the linked subpage for a longer Q&A section

A comparison of ways to receive compensation

Claim it yourself?

Futile


Cost risk: €0
Required effort: extensiveou will have to familiarize yourself with travel law and manage the legal dispute against the airline yourself.
Chances to succeed: slimAirlines often ignore claim letters or reject your demands by invoking spurious counter-arguments.
Waiting time: long
Debt collectors?

Strenuous


Cost risk: €0
Required effort: lowIn addition to filling out their online form, you may have to answer further questions by the company or its lawyers while they enforce your claim.
Chances to succeed: high
Waiting time: longA collection agency like Airhelp or Flightright will not pay you out until they have received the compensation from the airline. This may take months.

Ihr Kostenrisiko: €0
Required efford: minimalSimply fill out our online form.
Chances to succeed: guaranteedIf you are eligible, you can be sure to receive the promised compensation.
Waiting time: minimalWe transfer our payment within days after your online application.
Get a lawyer?

Overpriced


Cost risk: ~€270-680 (for a lawsuit in Germany)
Required effort: moderateProviding the lawyer with the relevant facts of the case will be less convenient than filling out an automized online form. Usually you will have to answer follow-up questions.
Chances to succeed: uncertainUnless you hire a specialist, it is uncertain whether your attorney will be able to represent you in a legal dispute on an equal footing against the airline’s legal team.
Waiting time: long

Passenger rights in cases of flight disruptions

Whoever suffers a flight irregularity might therefore qualify for to a lump-sum payment by the airline under EU Regulation No. 261/2004. Likewise, passengers cancelling their trips are usually entitled to a partial refund of the fare they paid. Yet, as is well known, it is not enough to be in the right if you cannot win. This general principle definitely applies to air passenger compensations: From our experience we know that airlines often leave claim letters unanswered, reject requests for compensation or only hand out vouchers instead of cash payments (to which they are obligated, though).

Enter Refund Pilot. If we discover through our online form that you as a passenger qualify for a flight compensation, we will pay it out to you immediately in return. For eligible passengers on long-haul flights, our direct payment amounts to €426-450 per person. In case you have been travelling on a medium-haul flight, you can apply for a payout of €284-300. To every entitled passenger on short-haul flights we can offer €177.50-187.50. If you are seeking a refund of a flight you had to cancel, we can offer you a direct payment worth 80-83% of the taxes and fees covered by your fare.

Under our terms and conditions, you can keep this payment regardless of whether we are able to enforce your claim against the airline or not. The advantage of this procedure is that you do not have to wait months for your passenger compensation as is the case with conventional debt collection companies like Airhelp and Flightright. Instead, we will pay you the promised sum for your claim directly, once you have applied for it through our online form.

In order for us to be able to offer you an instant compensation in the event of a flight cancellation or delay, certain conditions have to be met: First, it is important that your flight either started or arrived in the EU. In the latter case, the flight must have been operated by an airline headquartered in the EU as well. In any case, not only intra-European flights are eligible for compensation.

Furthermore, a compensation under EU Regulation No. 261/2004 prenecessitates that you have made a valid booking and arrived at the departure airport early enough to check-in on time. Besides, the flight irregularity you suffered must not have occurred due to factors beyond the airline’s control (e.g. force majeure). The following article explains in detail when the entitlement to flight compensation is excluded for the latter reason.

You can find out whether you qualify for our cash compensation in your specific case by using our free compensation calculator.