Europe locks in carry-on access and delay compensation for millions — while U.S. overhead bin fees reach $99 and Congress has not enacted a carry-on fee cap or a general delay-compensation requirement.
European Union lawmakers reached a provisional agreement on eu airline passenger rights this week that preserves flight delay compensation and guarantees carry-on bag access on EU routes, widening a regulatory gap with the United States where no comparable federal protections exist.
The deal, agreed by EU ambassadors and the EU’s Cypriot Council Presidency, requires airlines operating EU-covered flights to bundle at least one personal item and a wheeled carry-on bag into every standard base fare. Flight delay compensation — €250 to €600 depending on route distance — is preserved for passengers whose flights arrive more than three hours late, are canceled less than 14 days before departure or are affected by denied boarding. The new rules take effect in 2027.
For American air travelers, the contrast with the EU framework is practical rather than abstract. No federal law caps or bans carry-on bag fees in the United States. The most recent legislative attempt to address the issue — the Forbidding Airlines from Imposing Ridiculous Fees Act — was introduced in Congress in 2023 and never enacted. A federal court nullified the Biden-era transparency rule that would have required airlines to disclose ancillary fees upfront, and the EU package’s structure of a carry-on-inclusive default fare has no equivalent in U.S. aviation law.
European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said the agreement delivered on a core legislative commitment. “The European Parliament has always been the strongest advocate for strong air passenger rights. This agreement will strengthen the rights of air passengers across Europe. It will bring greater transparency and predictability for both consumers and airlines, without creating unnecessary bureaucracy for our industry. Parliament fought hard to make travel fairer and procedures clearer, and this is what we have delivered,” Metsola said.
The provisional agreement must be confirmed by Parliament and Council within six weeks, with a possible two-week extension. Parliament planned a July plenary vote.
Why It Matters for American Travelers
Budget carriers Frontier and Spirit charge between $60 and $99 for overhead bin access, with fees rising the closer to departure a passenger waits to pay. Allegiant Air lists carry-on fees from $10 to $75 depending on route and timing.
Legacy carriers vary. American Airlines and Delta Air Lines include a carry-on bag in their Basic Economy fares. United Airlines is the exception among the three: most Basic Economy passengers are limited to one personal item, and larger carry-on bags must be checked at the gate for a $75 fee. American charges $55 — or $50 if paid online — for a first checked bag on covered Basic Economy tickets issued on or after May 18, 2026.
Southwest Airlines, the last large U.S. carrier to offer broad free checked-bag access, began charging many passengers $35 for a first checked bag and $45 for a second starting May 28, 2025, ending a decades-long policy.
The Forbidding Airlines from Imposing Ridiculous Fees Act — the FAIR Fees Act — was reintroduced in Congress in January 2023 by Sens. Edward Markey and Richard Blumenthal and Reps. Steve Cohen, Jesús “Chuy” García and Ro Khanna. The bill, designated S.209 in the 118th Congress, would have prohibited unreasonable fees for bags, seating, cancellations and itinerary changes. It was referred to the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and never enacted.
The Scale of U.S. Ancillary Fee Revenue
The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, in a November 2024 report titled “The Sky’s the Limit: The Rise of Junk Fees in American Travel,” found that American, Delta, United, Frontier and Spirit generated $12.4 billion in seat-fee revenue from 2018 through 2023. The report said airlines have increasingly charged separately for goods and services that were once included in the ticket price, including carry-on bags, checked bags and seat selection.
The Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported that U.S. airlines collected $7.4 billion in baggage fees in 2025, equal to 2.9% of operating revenue, with $6.0 billion from domestic routes and $1.4 billion from international routes.
The Department of Transportation moved to require airlines and ticket agents to disclose upfront what they charge for checked bags, carry-on bags and changes or cancellations. DOT finalized that rule in April 2024 and projected it would save consumers more than $500 million annually. The rule did not cap or ban carry-on fees. In January 2025, a Fifth Circuit panel remanded it for Administrative Procedure Act shortcomings tied to undisclosed cost-benefit data. In February 2026, Reuters reported that an en banc Fifth Circuit ruling nullified the regulation entirely after airlines contested the requirement to reveal ancillary fees during booking.
The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 advanced U.S. passenger protections in narrower areas, according to a Senate Commerce Committee summary: a statutory right to automatic refunds when airlines cancel or significantly delay flights, a prohibition on fees for family seating and customer-service access provisions. Those provisions do not create a federal right to a carry-on bag in the base fare or a general cash-compensation schedule for ordinary delays.
13 Years to the Finish Line
The EU’s air passenger rights framework was originally enacted in 2004 under Regulation 261/2004. The European Commission adopted a revision proposal in March 2013, opening more than a decade of negotiations over baggage rights, delay thresholds and bankruptcy protections for passengers.
Lithuanian Green MEP Virginijus Sinkevičius described the scale of the low-cost carrier expansion that made the original rules obsolete. “Ryanair carried roughly 23 million passengers per year,” he said, referring to the carrier’s volume when the law was adopted. “In 2024, it carried over 183 million – nearly eight times more. Wizz Air did not yet exist. EasyJet was a niche operator. Low-cost carriers now represent a dominant share of intra-European aviation, and they have built business models specifically around unbundling services that were once standard and charging separately for each one.”
Sinkevičius said the 2004 law was “simply not designed” for the current market. “Today Europe is delivering for air passengers. We have protected the rights people already have, added new safeguards, and brought greater clarity when things go wrong. Parliament was clear from day one: we wanted to modernise the rules, but we would not let passengers pay the price. After more than a decade of deadlock, Europe is finally updating air passenger rights while keeping passengers firmly at the centre,” he said.
Previous negotiations saw several EU member states push to raise the compensation threshold from three hours to four, with Germany, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain among those opposed to maintaining the three-hour standard, according to Euronews. Airlines lobbied for compensation to begin only after at least five hours, arguing that delays are often linked to technical issues at airports and beyond carriers’ control. The EU Parliament rejected both positions.
An EU senior diplomat told reporters after the deal was struck: “The fees that need to be paid are the same as those known for airlines for almost 20 years now. It’s a situation that gives predictability.” One EU diplomat agreed, saying the revision of the law “was no longer optional but a necessity” and that “the old rules no longer delivered expectations.”
Industry Pushback
Ryanair, Europe’s largest low-cost carrier by passenger volume, rejected the outcome in a statement Monday. “These latest EU261 regs are more bureaucratic bunkum from the EU Parliament and Council. Instead of encouraging EU airlines to advertise our lowest fares (which exclude 2nd cabin bags), which is what over 50% of our customers choose, these new rubbish regulations require airlines to falsely advertise higher air fares, making EU airlines even less competitive,” the carrier said.
Ryanair also said: “As usual, neither the EU Parliament, nor the Council, have done anything to improve the competitiveness of EU airlines by abolishing Europe’s failed harmful ETS taxation or reforming the EU’s broken ATC system. Europe’s ATC system accounts for over 90% of airline delays, yet the airlines are not allowed to recover our EU261 costs from these failing Govt monopolies.”
Wizz Air, responding to the Parliament committee’s earlier proposal in 2025, strongly opposed the initiative, saying: “We strongly oppose the European Parliament’s proposal, which would destroy current commercial freedom and render flights more expensive for millions of passengers. If the proposal were adopted, airlines would be obliged to include the price of hand luggage in the initial ticket price, regardless of whether the customer needs said luggage or not. This would reduce price transparency and eliminate consumer choice, forcing passengers to pay for services they may not use.”
Ourania Georgoutsakou, managing director of trade association Airlines for Europe (A4E), said the agreement should prompt EU policymakers to address separate aviation priorities. “Use aviation EU Emission Trading System funds to purchase Sustainable Aviation Fuel and finance clean technologies, spend air traffic charges to recruit more controllers, and address carbon and business leakage that leaves European airlines and destinations less competitive than their global rivals,” Georgoutsakou said.
Fare Display and Additional Protections
Beyond baggage access, the agreement requires airlines, intermediaries and search portals to display a fare inclusive of carry-on luggage at the start of the booking process. Airlines may offer a cheaper opt-out fare to passengers who voluntarily choose to travel without a carry-on, but the carry-on-inclusive price must be the default offer.
The deal also includes no-fee corrections for spelling errors in passenger names, no charge for a printed boarding pass when a passenger has already checked in, and an open list of extraordinary circumstances — including natural disasters, war, weather events, unruly passengers and strikes by airport or air navigation personnel — that may excuse carriers from paying compensation.
Airlines must provide refreshments after every two hours of waiting, a meal after three hours and an overnight stay of up to three nights when needed. Airlines are required to electronically send affected passengers clear compensation-request instructions within four days of the journey’s end. Passengers will have nine months to file claims; airlines will have 30 days to pay or invoke extraordinary circumstances and explain complaint options.
Compensation Structure
Under the official European Parliament announcement, delay compensation is structured at €250 for flights up to 1,500 kilometers, €400 for flights between 1,500 and 3,500 kilometers, and €600 for longer flights; carriers may reduce compensation by 50% on the longest routes if rerouting is offered and the arrival delay does not exceed four hours.
Euronews reported a different compensation formula in its account of the deal, citing €300 for flights of more than 3,500 kilometers and €600 if the delay exceeds four hours or the flight is canceled; the official Parliament text and the Euronews account may reflect different phases of the legislative text or rounding, and the final enacted regulation will be the controlling document.
Transatlantic Routes
EU air passenger rights rules apply to flights departing the EU and to flights arriving in the EU when operated by an EU carrier. American travelers booking transatlantic itineraries that depart from or arrive at an EU airport on qualifying carriers will fall under the updated framework once it takes effect in 2027. Those protections do not extend to U.S. domestic flights.
The passenger-rights advocacy organization FlyersRights described the April 2024 DOT rules on automatic refunds and transparent ancillary fees as “two major victories” and said passenger-specific carry-on, checked-bag, change and cancellation fees should appear on the first screen where a flight is offered for sale — a position consistent with, but structurally weaker than, the EU’s carry-on-inclusive default model.
Key Takeaways
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- The EU reached a provisional agreement requiring airlines to include carry-on bags in base fares and preserving three-hour delay compensation at €250 to €600; rules take effect in 2027.
- The FAIR Fees Act (S.209, 118th Congress) — the most recent U.S. legislation targeting airline fees — was introduced in 2023 and never enacted; no federal law caps carry-on fees or mandates cash compensation for ordinary flight delays.
- Five U.S. airlines collected $12.4 billion in seat fees from 2018 through 2023; U.S. airlines gathered $7.4 billion in baggage fees in 2025, per Bureau of Transportation Statistics data.
- A federal court nullified the Biden-era DOT rule requiring upfront ancillary fee disclosure in February 2026; the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 addresses refunds and family seating but not carry-on bag access.
- American travelers on qualifying transatlantic routes served by EU carriers may benefit from the updated EU protections beginning in 2027; those rules do not apply to U.S. domestic itineraries.