Your flight is delayed more than 3 hours

Three hours is a real line in the rules, but it is not the line most people think it is. It matters in three separate places, and they do different things.

1. Still sitting on the aircraft: the tarmac rule

This is the one that is genuinely about the three-hour mark. On a domestic flight, an airline may not hold you on the tarmac for more than 3 hours without giving you the chance to leave the aircraft. On an international flight the limit is 4 hours. Food and water must be offered within two hours, and the lavatories must work.

The penalty for breaking this goes to the government, not to you. What the rule gives you is the right to get off — worth knowing, because it is enforceable and crews know it.

2. The airline moved your schedule: the refund rule

If the airline changes your departure or arrival by more than 3 hours on a domestic flight (6 on an international one) and you decline the alternative it offers, you are owed an automatic refund of the unused portion, in the original form of payment.

The words that matter are "decline the alternative". If you accept the rebooking and fly, there is no refund — you received the transport you paid for, late.

3. Departing Europe: EC 261

If your flight left an EU airport — on any airline — or arrives in the EU on an EU airline, an arrival delay of three hours or more can trigger fixed compensation of roughly €250 to €600 by distance. This is the rule people are thinking of, and it is the only one on this page that pays cash for lateness.

It does not apply to a domestic US flight, and it is not payable when the cause was an extraordinary circumstance — most weather, air traffic control strikes and security events.

What to do while you are waiting

1. Screenshot the departure board and every message the airline sends. Times are the whole case.
2. Ask, at the desk, whether the delay is controllable. That word decides whether the airline's own meal and hotel commitments apply.
3. Do not accept a voucher in place of a refund you are entitled to. You can take the refund in the original payment method.
4. Rebook yourself only after the airline refuses to — a ticket you buy voluntarily is rarely reimbursed.