Claim EU 261 flight compensation yourself from Romania: the full DIY playbook

Claiming EU 261 flight compensation alone from Romania is free, legal, and entirely possible without a lawyer. The full payout — €250, €400 or €600 per passenger — stays in your account. What it costs instead is one to three hours of focused work plus patience while the airline tries to wait you out. This guide lays out the exact route a Romanian passenger should follow: the first claim letter, the escalation to ANPC and AACR, and the final stop at Judecătoria with the small-claims procedure. The legal foundation is Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 , and three CJEU rulings carry most of the weight in front of Romanian institutions.

If you are still weighing the DIY route against handing the case to a service, read our honest comparison of claiming yourself or using a service first — that page covers the trade-off in detail. This guide assumes you have decided to do it alone.

When EU 261 actually applies — the short eligibility check

Before writing a single letter, confirm the case is in scope. EU 261 covers you if all three of these hold:

• The flight departed from any EU airport (Otopeni, Cluj, Timișoara, Iași, Bacău, Craiova, Sibiu — every Romanian airport counts), or arrived in the EU on an EU-licensed carrier (Tarom, Wizz Air, Ryanair, Lufthansa, KLM, Air France).
• The disruption was a cancellation, denied boarding (including overbooking), or a delay of three hours or more at the final destination.
• The cause was not a genuine extraordinary circumstance — and the airline has the burden of proving that.

The three-hour rule comes from CJEU Sturgeon (joined cases C-402/07 and C-432/07, 2009), which extended the right to fixed compensation to long-delayed passengers, not only cancelled ones. The compensation tiers are flat: €250 for flights up to 1,500 km, €400 for 1,500–3,500 km and all intra-EU above 1,500 km, €600 for flights over 3,500 km that go outside the EU. The amounts do not depend on ticket price.

For a deeper breakdown of which delays cross the threshold, see our EU 261 delay thresholds guide and the extraordinary circumstances primer .

Step 1 — gather the documents (15 minutes)

Pull these together before opening the airline's claim form. The list is short.

• Booking reference (PNR) — six characters, on the confirmation e-mail.
• Flight number and scheduled times — the original schedule, not the disrupted one.
• Boarding pass or check-in confirmation for every passenger on the booking.
• Proof of actual arrival time at the final destination. A screenshot from Flightradar24 or FlightAware works; the airline's own delay-notification e-mail works better.
• Written notice from the carrier, if any — the SMS, push notification or counter announcement explaining the delay or cancellation.
• Care-cost receipts — meals, drinks, hotel, transport — if the airline failed its Article 9 obligations and you paid out of pocket.
• IBAN in your own name for the eventual transfer.

If any document is missing, ask the airline for a copy under Article 14 (right to information) and under GDPR. They have to provide it.

Step 2 — send the airline claim letter (30 minutes)

Every major carrier serving Romania has an EU 261 form on its website. Use it — not generic customer-service e-mail — because the form routes the case to the legal team. Wizz Air, Tarom, Ryanair, Lufthansa, Turkish Airlines, KLM, Air France, LOT and easyJet all have one.

The letter has to do three things: state the facts, cite the legal basis, and demand a specific sum with a deadline. Below is a template you can adapt.

Subject: EU 261/2004 compensation claim — booking [PNR], flight [XX1234] of [DD.MM.YYYY]

Dear [Carrier],

I was a passenger on flight [XX1234] from [origin] to [destination] scheduled to depart on [DD.MM.YYYY] at [HH:MM]. The flight arrived at the final destination at [HH:MM] on [DD.MM.YYYY], a delay of [X hours Y minutes] beyond the scheduled arrival time.

Under Article 7(1) of Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 and in light of the CJEU judgment in joined cases C-402/07 and C-432/07 (Sturgeon, 2009), I am entitled to fixed compensation of €[250/400/600] per passenger, for [N] passengers, totalling €[…].

Should the carrier seek to rely on Article 5(3), I note that under Wallentin-Hermann (C-549/07, 2008) the burden is on the carrier to prove both the existence of an extraordinary circumstance and that it could not have been avoided by all reasonable measures.

I request payment by bank transfer to the following IBAN within 14 calendar days from the date of this letter: [IBAN, BIC, account holder name].

If no payment is received I will escalate the matter to AACR (Autoritatea Aeronautică Civilă Română) as the national enforcement body, to ANPC, and, if necessary, file at Judecătoria under the simplified small-claims procedure.

Kind regards, [Full name, telephone, e-mail]

Keep a PDF copy of the submission. Most carriers acknowledge within 48 hours. The legal response window in practice is six to eight weeks; some pay within ten days, some wait the entire eight weeks before sending a templated rejection.

Step 3 — handle the rejection (the part most people give up on)

Airlines reject first. They will invoke "operational reasons", "weather", "air traffic control restrictions", "technical issue" or simply "extraordinary circumstances" without further detail. Most of these defences crumble when you push back, because of the burden-of-proof rule established in Wallentin-Hermann (C-549/07, 2008).

When the rejection arrives, send a second letter that does two things:

1. Demand the specific factual basis. Ask the carrier to identify the exact event, with date, time, and source documentation, and to explain what reasonable measures it took to avoid the consequences. A vague label is not a defence.
2. Cite the right case. If the excuse is a technical fault, van der Lans (C-257/14, 2015) confirms that a malfunction discovered during regular maintenance is part of the carrier's ordinary activity and not extraordinary. If the excuse is a wildcat or crew strike, Krüsemann (C-195/17, 2018) says wildcat strikes of the carrier's own crew are not extraordinary either.

About one in three passengers receives payment at this stage simply because the carrier sees a passenger who knows the case law. The rest move on to Step 4.

Step 4 — escalate to ANPC and AACR (free)

Romania has two relevant authorities and they do different things.

• AACR — Autoritatea Aeronautică Civilă Română — is the designated National Enforcement Body (NEB) for EU 261 in Romania, registered with the European Commission for that purpose. AACR handles the substantive aviation-regulation side: it can investigate whether the carrier complied with Regulation 261/2004 and apply administrative sanctions. File the EU 261 complaint form with all your documents attached.
• ANPC — Autoritatea Națională pentru Protecția Consumatorilor — is the general consumer protection authority. It accepts complaints against carriers as commercial actors, mediates disputes, and can issue fines for breach of consumer-protection law. Many Romanian passengers report faster informal results from ANPC than from AACR, because consumer-protection inspectors push for settlement.

Submit to both. They are free, they are independent, and the carrier's legal team takes both more seriously than a passenger e-mail. Allow two to four months for either body to act.

Step 5 — Judecătoria, small-claims procedure (last resort)

If both ANPC and AACR fail to extract payment, the final lever is the Judecătoria — the local first-instance court. For EU 261 amounts (€250–€600 per passenger, even a family of four sits well below 10,000 lei) the case fits the procedura cu privire la cererile de valoare redusă — the simplified small-claims procedure for claims up to 10,000 lei. A specially designed standardised form, no oral hearing required, and the court fee is around 200 lei.

Jurisdiction is helpful here. Under CJEU Rehder (C-204/08, 2009) an EU 261 passenger can sue at either the departure or the arrival airport's competent court. For a flight from Otopeni that means Judecătoria Sectorului 1 București is generally the right local court; for an arriving Bucharest flight it works the same way. You do not need to chase the airline to its registered head office abroad.

The 3-year prescription period under the Romanian Civil Code applies — confirmed by the CJEU in Cuadrench Moré (C-139/11, 2013) as the lawful national limitation for EU 261 claims. So a disruption in June 2026 stays claimable in court until June 2029. Older flights are time-barred unless prescription was interrupted (for example by a written acknowledgment of debt from the carrier).

For a deeper procedural walk-through, see our flight compensation court guide .

What this realistically costs you

The DIY route uses no money. The cost is hours and the emotional cost of not giving up at the first "no". A realistic budget on a clean case:

On a €600 payout that is well-paid time. On a €250 claim against a carrier that goes to court, the maths is closer; that is the point at which many passengers hand it to a service.

If, after reading the steps, the workload looks more than you want to take on, we explain the alternative honestly on the claim yourself or service comparison page . The service route trades 25–35% of your payout for zero personal effort.

Prefer not to write the letters? AirHelp checks your flight free — no fee unless you win

Frequently asked questions

How long does a DIY EU 261 claim take from Romania? For a cooperative airline, six to ten weeks from the first claim letter to payment. If the carrier rejects and the case escalates to ANPC mediation, add two to four months. A Judecătoria small-claims filing typically resolves within six to twelve months. The total time investment from the passenger is roughly one to three hours of writing plus document collection.

Do I need a lawyer to claim EU 261 in Romania? No. The airline claim letter and the ANPC complaint require no legal representation. At Judecătoria, claims under 50,000 lei follow the simplified procedure and a passenger can file in person using standard forms. A lawyer becomes useful only for unusually complex cases or amounts above the small-claims threshold.

What is the deadline to claim EU 261 under Romanian law? Three years from the date of the disrupted flight, under the general prescription period in the Romanian Civil Code. CJEU confirmed in Cuadrench Moré (C-139/11, 2013) that national limitation periods apply to EU 261 claims. So a flight in June 2026 stays claimable until June 2029.

Which Romanian authority enforces EU 261 against the airline? AACR — Autoritatea Aeronautică Civilă Română — is the designated National Enforcement Body for EU 261 in Romania. ANPC handles consumer-protection complaints in parallel. Both are free. Submit to both for maximum pressure.

What if the airline says "extraordinary circumstances" without proof? Demand specifics in writing. Under Wallentin-Hermann (C-549/07, 2008) the airline carries the burden of proof: it must show both that an extraordinary circumstance existed AND that it could not have been avoided with reasonable measures. A two-line "operational reasons" email does not meet that standard.

Does claiming compensation cost anything if the case goes to Judecătoria? The court fee for the simplified small-claims procedure (cereri de valoare redusă) is approximately 200 lei. If the claim succeeds the court typically orders the airline to reimburse that fee. No lawyer fee is required.

Last updated: 2 June 2026. This guide reflects the legal position under Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 and the cited CJEU case law as published on EUR-Lex. It is informational, not personal legal advice; for case-specific questions consult a Romanian lawyer or the relevant authority.