ANSWER · UK 261 AND EC 261
My flight missed the airport night curfew. Can I claim?
A night flight ban binds the airline, but obeying it does not by itself excuse compensation: under Art. 5(3) the airline has to show why the flight was running at the curfew at all. On 22 April 2021 the Court of Justice judged a Berlin flight that missed the Tegel curfew on the cause of its knock on delay, weather three rotations earlier, not on the ban.
REVIEWED AGAINST RULE SET V6 AND THE CITED PRIMARY SOURCES · UPDATED 7 AUGUST 2026
The curfew is rarely the real cause
The ban itself sits outside the airline's control. What the airline must prove is the chain that put the flight there: in WZ v Austrian Airlines the Court accepted that an extraordinary circumstance on an earlier rotation of the same aircraft can carry through, but only with a direct causal link, which the national court verifies.
If the curfew forced a diversion
A diversion to another airport serving the same town or region is not a cancellation. The carrier must offer on its own initiative to pay the transfer to the booked airport, and your delay is measured when you actually arrive there at the end of that transfer, under Art. 8(3).
THE JUDGMENTS BEHIND THIS ANSWER
SOURCES
- Case C-826/19 WZ v Austrian Airlines, judgment of 22 April 2021 (ECLI:EU:C:2021:318) · EUR-Lex · checked 7 August 2026
- Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, Art. 5(3) · EUR-Lex · checked 7 August 2026
- Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, Art. 8(3) · EUR-Lex · checked 7 August 2026
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