AirHelp vs Compensair vs ClaimCompass: EU261 Compared

When a flight lands three hours late, Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 entitles most passengers on EU routes to fixed compensation of €250 to €600. Collecting it is the hard part. Airlines rarely pay without being asked, so specialist services such as AirHelp, Compensair and ClaimCompass file, negotiate and go to court for you.

Below, the three are compared on fees, processing time and scope. After that comes a different option: event contracts on GADUIN, which you open before the flight leaves and which settle once the airport publishes the arrival, instead of months later through a claims process.

EU261 in Plain Numbers: Your Statutory Entitlement

Under Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, passengers on qualifying flights have a legal right to fixed compensation when they reach their destination more than three hours late. The Court of Justice of the EU set this three-hour arrival standard in Sturgeon v Condor (C‑402/07) and confirmed it in Nelson v Lufthansa (C‑581/10). It applies the same way to long delays and to cancellations where re-routing gets you there late.

Compensation depends on distance. Fare class and airline don’t matter:

Flight distance	Fixed compensation
1,500 km or less	€250
1,501–3,500 km, or intra-EU above 1,500 km	€400
Over 3,500 km (non-intra-EU)	€600

The regulation also covers denied boarding because of overbooking, and cancellations notified fewer than 14 days before departure. It applies to flights departing from an EU airport, and to flights from a non-EU airport to an EU airport operated by an EU-based carrier.

There are exceptions. Airlines don’t have to pay when the disruption was caused by extraordinary circumstances, meaning events they couldn’t have avoided even after taking all reasonable measures. Strikes by the airline’s own staff usually don’t count as extraordinary circumstances, so your right to compensation stands. Outside factors such as air traffic control actions may count. Our EU261 Extraordinary Circumstances Guide covers the legal framework and the key Court of Justice cases. Airline strikes are covered in Airline Strike & EU261 Compensation.

For a full guide to passenger rights under the regulation, see Your EU261 Rights Explained.

How AirHelp, Compensair, and ClaimCompass Work

All three work the same way. You assign your EU261 claim to them, and they handle all the airline correspondence, paperwork and legal escalation. You pay a percentage of the compensation only if they win. There’s nothing to pay upfront and nothing if the claim fails.

AirHelp is the largest company in this market. Founded in 2013, it has handled compensation requests for millions of passengers in Europe and elsewhere. It can scan a linked email inbox and find past flights that qualify. AirHelp deals with the airline for you and, if the airline refuses without legal grounds, takes it to court through its legal network.

Compensair focuses on a simple online portal. Besides EU261, it handles Turkish Air Passenger Rights and the Canadian Air Passenger Protection Regulations, so it covers more countries than the other two.

ClaimCompass goes after clearly eligible, straightforward EU261 cases. Its process asks very little of you: you enter your flight details and it does the rest.

With all three, you never have to deal with the airline yourself. That’s what you’re paying for: if chasing airlines is unfamiliar or takes too much time, a specialist does it for a commission.

Fee Structures: What Each Service Costs on a Successful Outcome

Fees differ a lot between the three, especially when the case goes to court.

Service	Standard fee	With legal escalation
AirHelp	35%	up to 50%
Compensair	30%	up to 40%
ClaimCompass	35%	up to 50%

Source: fee structures as published on provider websites and reviewed by independent flight compensation comparison services including themilesmarket.com and fitcationhq.com, accessed June 2026.

On a €600 long-haul claim, that works out to:

Service	Standard net to passenger	Litigated net to passenger
AirHelp	€390	€300
Compensair	€420	€360
ClaimCompass	€390	€300

Compensair’s lower 30% base fee makes it cheaper for simple cases the airline pays without a fight. All three charge more when the airline won’t pay without going to court, and that happens more often than their sales pages suggest.

If your case is clear-cut, you can also claim directly from the airline or through a national enforcement body (the CAA in the UK, DGAC in France, Luftfahrt-Bundesamt in Germany). That’s free, and you keep the full legal amount with no commission.

Speed and Success: What to Expect on the Timeline

Processing time varies more than anything else across the three services.

When the airline accepts the claim and pays without a challenge, cases usually close in four to twelve weeks with any of the three, according to third-party comparison reviews.

Cases that go to court take much longer. Contested cases against uncooperative airlines often run six months to over a year, and longer if there are appeals. ClaimCompass says most of its cases take a few months. AirHelp’s documentation gives similar times for simple, uncontested claims.

On success rates: all three screen cases first and turn down weak ones, such as extraordinary circumstances, routes outside the regulation or delays under three hours. AirHelp reports a high success rate on cases that reach the legal stage. That figure reflects which cases it picks as much as how the courts rule, since cases that pass screening are strong to begin with.

AirHelp’s own research says a large share of passengers who qualify for EU261 compensation never claim it. That shows both how much money goes unclaimed and how hard it is to chase airlines on your own.

Where the Post-Flight Model Has Structural Limits

The post-flight model works well for what it was built to do. It also has limits you should know before you rely on it.

It only works after the fact. All three services start after the disruption has happened. The compensation they recover doesn’t cover knock-on costs such as missed connections on separate tickets, unplanned hotel nights or lost revenue from a disrupted business trip. EU261 sets fixed amounts regardless of what you actually lost.

You can’t count on the timing. Payment might come in four weeks or eighteen months. That makes compensation useless as a planning assumption. If you’re managing cash flow around travel disruption, an unknown recovery date doesn’t help.

Coverage has limits. The regulation doesn’t cover every route or every airline. Delays under three hours aren’t covered at all. Proven extraordinary circumstances cancel the right to compensation. No service can recover money the regulation doesn’t provide.

Commission cuts what you get. On long-haul routes, where court cases are more common, a 50% combined fee can leave you with €300 out of a €600 claim. That beats nothing, but it’s less than the full amount you’d get by claiming yourself.

None of this is a criticism of the services. They do what they’re designed to do. These are simply the limits of the model.

A Different Instrument: Event Contracts on GADUIN

GADUIN lists transport event contracts: market positions that settle on the recorded outcome of one named flight. A post-flight service starts work only after the disruption and depends on the airline cooperating. A GADUIN event contract is opened before departure and settles on the destination airport’s published arrival time, compared with its published schedule.

Before your flight, you open a position in that flight’s market. It has three outcomes: on time, delayed more than 15 minutes, or cancelled. Each has a live price between 1¢ and 99¢, which is the chance the market gives it. If the outcome you hold happens, each share pays $1 in USDT. If it doesn’t, your shares pay $0. Settlement is automatic, under terms fixed when the market opened. It doesn’t depend on the airline admitting liability, and nobody at GADUIN decides the result.

How the two compare:

	Post-flight service (AirHelp / Compensair / ClaimCompass)	GADUIN event contract
Timing	Post-flight	Pre-flight
Settlement trigger	Airline agreement or court order	The airport’s published arrival time
Settlement timeline	Weeks to over a year	Once the arrival is published
Cost	30–50% of statutory compensation	What you paid for the shares; GADUIN charges no trading fee
Outcome basis	Regulatory entitlement (EU261)	Contractual market position
Currency	EUR / fiat bank transfer	USDT
Scope	EU261-qualifying flights	Any listed transport contract

GADUIN isn’t a post-flight claims service, a legal representative or an insurance product. It’s a prediction market on transport. Opening a position doesn’t give you any right to fixed legal compensation. Settlement follows the market’s own terms, and there’s no regulatory minimum. Each price is the chance the market gives that outcome right now, and it moves as people trade.

Trading on GADUIN before a flight doesn’t affect your EU261 rights. If a qualifying delay happens, you can still claim through any of the three services above. The event contract settles separately, under its own terms. The two work alongside each other, on different timelines and under different legal and contractual rules.

For how flight delay event contracts work in full, see Hedge Your Flight Delay: Event Contracts That Pay When Airlines Do Not.

This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, or investment advice. Past settlement outcomes on event contracts do not guarantee future results.

Which Approach Fits Which Situation?

AirHelp, Compensair, and ClaimCompass make sense when:

A qualifying delay or cancellation has already happened on an EU261-eligible route
You arrived at least three hours late, the threshold set in Sturgeon (C‑402/07)
You’d rather not deal with the airline yourself
The amount is worth the commission, especially on long-haul routes where the €600 maximum applies

Of the three, Compensair’s 30% base fee (against 35% for AirHelp and ClaimCompass) makes it the best value for simple cases on the routes it covers. AirHelp’s automation and inbox scanning suit travellers who want to do as little as possible and may have older qualifying flights they never claimed. ClaimCompass works fine for clear-cut EU-route claims.

GADUIN event contracts fit when:

You want a position on a flight’s delay outcome before departure
You want a result settled on a published arrival record under terms fixed before the market opened, instead of an uncertain recovery process
The route or situation falls outside EU261, or you want a position that settles without the airline’s cooperation

You can use both. You can hold a GADUIN position before departure and still claim EU261 compensation through a post-flight service if a qualifying delay happens. They run under different rules, at different points in your trip, and settle in different ways. Whether you use one, the other or both depends on your own travel risk and how soon you need the money.