EU agrees to increase flight delay times before passengers get compensation
EU countries have agreed to increase the amount of time aircraft passengers are delayed before they can qualify for compensation.Passengers on short-haul flights would have to be delayed by four hours or more before they could claim compensation, under the plans.For long-haul flights delays would have to be six or more hours.Current EU rules dictate that passengers can ask for compensation if their flight is delayed for more than three hours.The EU countries also agreed to increase the amount of compensation for those delayed on short-haul flights from €250 (£211) to €300, but plan to reduce compensation for long-haul flights from €600 to €500.
The revision of the EU’s air passenger rights was initially proposed in 2013 by the European Commission.It has taken 12 years of negotiations for member states to reach an agreement on changes to the timeframe for compensation, and the plans still have to be negotiated with the European parliament before they become law.The European Consumer Organisation, the BEUC, said the plan would deprive “the majority of passengers from their compensation rights”, as most delays are between two and four hours.The trade body Airlines for Europe (A4E), which represents companies such as Ryanair, easyJet and Lufthansa, also condemned the plan because it wanted delay times to be even longer before compensation payments kick in.Ourania Georgoutsakou, the A4E managing director, said: “Europe has been waiting for transparent and workable passenger rights for 12 years and member states have fallen at the final hurdle to deliver.
“Rather than providing delay thresholds of five and nine hours that would save up to 70% of rescuable cancelled flights, member states have diluted the European Commission’s original proposal and introduced even more complexity.”The European Commission’s initial plan included extending the time to five hours for short-haul flights and nine for long-haul.The agreement also includes a “right to be rerouted” when there are long delays, automating forms for compensation and stronger rights for passengers with disabilities or reduced mobility.Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionPhilippe Tabarot, the French transport minister, said he was pleased with the agreement.He wrote on X: “The text could have been more ambitious, but it is an important step towards improving the quality of service offered to air passengers.
”The UK has its own rules on air passenger rights, based on EU regulation.Under these rules, airlines must compensate passengers if their flight arrives at its destination more than three hours late and extraordinary circumstances did not cause the delay.For short-haul flights under 1,500km (932 miles), passengers can be compensated up to £220.This rises to £350 for medium-haul flights between 1,500km and 3,500km.For long-haul flights of more than 3,500km, delayed passengers can be paid up to £520, although this can be lowered to £260 if the passenger arrives at the destination with a delay of less than four hours.
However, an EU official said its changes could affect British travellers too, as it applies to passengers taking flights with an EU carrier.This means it could affect a passenger travelling to and from an EU country on an EU airline.
It’s high time Britain had another conversation about cannabis | Letters
The findings of the London Drugs Commission are welcome after a decade or more of static drug policy in the UK (Worried about weed: should London follow New York and decriminalise cannabis?, 31 May). While the report focuses on London, the suggestions resonate across the UK and beyond.Cannabis was reclassified from class B to class C in 2004, reducing the penalties for possession, after the home secretary (David Blunkett) took the advice of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Unfortunately, the Labour government asked the council to reconsider its advice based on protests about the risks of cannabis to health. The council, headed by Sir Michael Rawlins, confirmed its advice that the drug should stay in class C
A novel idea for men’s emotional growth | Letter
Sarah Moss’s contribution to your debate (‘Men need liberation too’: do we need more male novelists?, 31 May) strikes at the heart of the matter: the issue is not whether men are being published, but whether they are reading – and being supported to develop emotional lives that fiction can help foster.As a researcher on men’s health behaviours, I see growing evidence that restrictive models of masculinity – stoicism, self-reliance, emotional detachment – are linked to poorer mental and physical health outcomes. Literature offers an antidote: access to emotional nuance, empathy and self-reflection. But boys are rarely encouraged to see reading in this way.As a teenager, I rarely discussed books with male friends, even though I secretly read them
Jamie Oliver attacks Essex council for not recognising dyslexia as special need
The celebrity chef and campaigner Jamie Oliver has said he is “disgusted” by his native county of Essex for not formally recognising dyslexia as a special educational need.Discussing his new documentary on dyslexia, Oliver claimed Essex county council did not want “to spend the money” on young people diagnosed with dyslexia, a neurological learning difficulty affecting reading and writing.“I’m disgusted by my county of Essex,” Oliver told a panel including the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, on Thursday. “I come from Essex. I was born and bred in Essex and [went to school] in Essex … and they’ve decided to not recognise dyslexia
Key takeaways from world’s largest cancer conference in Chicago
Doctors, scientists and researchers shared new findings on ways to tackle cancer at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting, the world’s largest cancer conference.The event in Chicago, attended by about 44,000 health professionals, featured more than 200 sessions on this year’s theme, Driving Knowledge to Action: Building a Better Future. Here is a roundup of the key studies.An immunotherapy drug could help some cancer patients live years longer without the disease getting worse or coming back, a trial found.Pembrolizumab, sold under the brand name Keytruda, kept head and neck cancers at bay for five years, compared with 30 months with standard care
Free school meals extended but winter fuel changes could tax dead pensioners’ families
Bereaved families of tens of thousands of dead pensioners could be pursued by tax officials to recoup winter fuel payments under a new system being explored by the Treasury, the Guardian has learned.In a further attempt to win public support and quell Labour backbench concerns, ministers are announcing on Thursday that all pupils in England whose families claim universal credit will be eligible for free school meals under an expansion of the scheme.Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, confirmed on Wednesday that more pensioners will get winter fuel payments reinstated this year after weeks of uncertainty over the government’s decision to make a U-turn on scrapping the benefit.Ministers are looking at restoring the payments as a universal benefit and then recouping the money when high-income pensioners fill in their tax returns, as creating a new means test would be a highly complex option.However, government insiders are concerned about a time lag of at least six months between the payment of up to £300 being made and it then being clawed back
EHRC commissioner calls for ‘period of correction’ on trans rights after legal ruling
Transgender people must acknowledge a “period of correction” of rights after the supreme court decision on gender because they “have been lied to over many years” about what their rights actually were, one of the commissioners drawing up the official post-ruling guidance has said.Speaking at a debate about the repercussions of April’s ruling that “woman” in the Equality Act refers only to a biological woman, Akua Reindorf said trans people had been misled about their rights and there “has to be a period of correction, because other people have rights”.Reindorf, a barrister who is one of eight commissioners at the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), who was speaking in a personal capacity, said she believes the fault lay with trans lobbyists.However, the human rights campaign groups Liberty and Amnesty called on the EHRC to make sure the rights of trans people were properly considered when it draws up guidance for public bodies on how to implement the changed legal landscape.A director of the trans campaign group TransActual said Reindorf’s remarks were profoundly unhelpful
John Lewis slashes points its credit card holders earn on purchases elsewhere
EU agrees to increase flight delay times before passengers get compensation
Donald Trump calls for big cut to US interest rates after jobs report shows hiring slowdown – as it happened
US jobs market slows down as businesses cope with Trump trade war uncertainty
NatWest apologises to millions of customers locked out of app
Hedge fund orders London-based analysts back to office five days a week