About 120,000 Romanian passengers have been affected in the past three years by delayed or canceled flights, but less than 1% claimed compensation, according to data collected by AirHelp, a company active in the recovery of damages caused by airline delays.

AirHelp entered the Romanian market earlier this month.

“According to our data, only 2% apply for damages at a global level. In Romania, the percentage is even lower, less than 1%. Most of them don’t even know they can claim damages,” Stefan Radu, general manager AirHelp Romania, told local News.ro.

If the airlines would pay damages to the 120,000 affected passengers from Romania, these compensations would amount to some EUR 34 million, according to AirHelp data. According to European rules, Romanian passengers can claim compensation for canceled flights or flight delays of over three hours from 2015, 2016 or 2017.

The Romanian airports that register the biggest delays are Bucharest’s Henri Coanda Airport and the Avram Iancu Airport in Cluj.

This year, the busiest day at the airports in Romania was August 18, when 285 flights were scheduled to depart from local destinations. Twenty-nine of them had delays between 15 and 180 minutes, two were delayed for more than three hours, and two were canceled.

Canceled flights between Bucharest and Lisbon leave hundreds of tourists at airports

Irina Marica, irina.marica@romania-insider.com