New rules for air travelers: what to know

Compensation for delays: what actually changes

The June 2026 agreement confirms the 3-hour delay threshold and the amounts already known (€250 to €600 depending on distance), rejecting the proposal to raise it to 4 hours that would have excluded many delays from compensation rights. The text also clarifies details on extraordinary circumstances and rights for passengers with reduced mobility. Final Council confirmation is still pending, expected for early August 2026; once published in the Official Gazette, airlines and member states will have one year to comply, so new rules will likely apply from the second half of 2027.

Digital travel documents: where they are already being tested

The Digital Travel Credential, the ICAO standard allowing border control passage without physically presenting a passport, is already being tested on some routes: in Helsinki since 2023 on Finnair flights to London, Manchester and Edinburgh, and with an experimental flight that landed in Amsterdam Schiphol. The stated objective is European-level interoperability by 2026, with digital wallet tests complete by 2027 — but for now the physical passport remains mandatory to carry.

Liquids and carry-on baggage: rules still uneven

As we detail further in our article on new airport technologies, an increasing number of European airports already allow liquids in carry-on bags with latest-generation CT scanners, but adoption remains very inconsistent. Baggage policies also continue to vary significantly from airline to airline: checking your flight's specific rules remains safer than relying on what you experienced last time with another airline.

Checking updated rules before every trip remains the safest strategy: the 261 regulation reform won't change anything before the second half of 2027, but new scanners for liquids and digital documents are spreading airport by airport, not with a single date valid across all of Europe.