Can I write my EU261 claim letter myself?

What the letter must contain

• The facts: flight number, date, route, scheduled vs actual arrival, and the delay at your final destination — not at the gate you boarded.
• The legal basis: Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, the article that applies to your case, and for delays the Sturgeon judgment (C-402/07) that set the 3-hour rule.
• The exact amount: €250, €400 or €600 per passenger, set by great-circle distance of the whole journey — claiming the wrong band is an easy rejection.
• A payment demand by bank transfer, with an explicit refusal of vouchers — Article 7(3) says non-cash compensation needs your signed agreement.
• A deadline (14 days is standard) and what happens after it: escalation to the national enforcement body.

Where homemade letters usually fail

• Wrong amount: distance bands are measured origin to final destination as the crow flies — a missed connection counts the whole journey (C-559/16), which often moves a claim from €250 to €600.
• Guessed delay times: airlines check their own records; a letter that says "about 4 hours" invites a dispute the data would have settled.
• No rebuttal: airlines answer most letters with "extraordinary circumstances". A strong letter pre-empts the likely excuse with the case law that rejects it — technical faults (C-549/07) and own-crew strikes (C-28/20) don't excuse them.
• Wrong destination: many airlines quietly ignore emailed claims and only process their own web form. Sending the right letter to the wrong place costs weeks.
• No follow-up: a single unanswered letter, never escalated, is how most claims die.

So: DIY, or a tool?

If you're comfortable computing the band, citing the case law, and chasing the deadline — write it yourself; this page and our free checker give you everything, and the check stays free either way.

vola exists for everyone else: the checker verifies your flight against real flight data, computes the exact amount, and €29 flat — VAT included, covering everyone on the booking — buys the finished letter with the citations, the airline's actual claims channel, deadline tracking, and the free escalation path. On a family claim worth €1,600, that's the difference between paying €29 and paying a commission agency €300–500 for the same regulation.