On 7 July 2026 the European Parliament gave final approval to the long-awaited overhaul of EU air passenger rights, ending more than a decade of deadlock over the rules that protect travellers when flights are delayed, cancelled or overbooked. The reform of Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 was adopted by a decisive 646 votes to 12, with 3 abstentions, after a hard-fought compromise reached in the conciliation committee with the Council.
For anyone flying to or from Belgrade, the headline question is not only what changes across the EU, but how those changes will reach Serbia. The answer runs through the European Common Aviation Area (ECAA) — and it points in one direction: convergence.
What stays the same: the core protections held
The most important outcome is what did not change. Attempts to raise the compensation trigger from three hours to five were defeated, and the three-hour delay threshold survives. Passengers keep the right to compensation for delays of more than three hours on arrival, for cancellations notified less than 14 days before departure, and for denied boarding.
Compensation amounts are also unchanged and remain tied to distance: EUR 250 for journeys up to 1,500 km, EUR 400 for longer intra-European journeys and other flights between 1,500 and 3,500 km, and EUR 600 for all longer journeys. Airlines may still reduce compensation by 50% on long-haul routes where they offer suitable re-routing or where the delay stays within four hours. The duty of care also remains: refreshments every two hours, a meal after three hours, and accommodation where needed (capped at three nights when the disruption is outside the airline’s control).
What is new: clearer, faster, more transparent
The reform’s real value lies in turning nominal rights into rights that are actually exercised. Passengers who choose a refund instead of re-routing will now be reimbursed automatically. Anyone caught in a disruption must receive clear instructions on how to claim within four days of the journey, and airlines may no longer make a user account or a dedicated app a precondition for accessing that information. Passengers have nine months to file a claim; airlines have 30 days to pay, invoke extraordinary circumstances, or explain a refusal and set out how to complain.
For the first time, an open (non-exhaustive) list of “extraordinary circumstances” is written into the rules to reduce guesswork over when a refusal is fair. It covers events such as natural disasters, war, adverse weather, disruptive passengers, and strikes by airport, air-traffic-control and ground-handling staff.
Fare transparency is strengthened. Passengers gain the right to bring one personal item on board free of charge, and airlines, intermediaries and search portals must display the fare together with the cabin-baggage allowance from the very start of the booking process. A no-show ban is also removed: travellers keep the return leg of a round-trip ticket even if they did not use the outbound flight, without an extra fee.
Vulnerable passengers receive stronger safeguards. Families cannot be separated when seats are allocated, and a companion of a child under 14 — as well as passengers with disabilities or reduced mobility and pregnant travellers — must be seated adjacently at no extra cost. Passengers who miss a flight because the airport failed to provide timely assistance to the gate keep their right to compensation, re-routing and care. Digital boarding passes must be available at check-in without an app or account, and there are no more fees for correcting name-spelling errors or for a printed boarding pass once a passenger has checked in.
When it takes effect
The Council is expected to give formal approval in early August 2026. The revised rules will enter into force 20 days after publication in the Official Journal, after which Member States and businesses will have a 12-month transition period to prepare. In practice, that places application in the second half of 2027. Until then, the current rules continue to apply in full.
How the reform reaches Serbia: the ECAA link
Serbia is not an EU Member State, but it is a contracting party to the ECAA Agreement of 2006 — the multilateral framework that extends the single European aviation market to the Western Balkans and beyond. Under that agreement, Serbia committed to transpose the EU aviation acquis into national law and to keep it aligned as the acquis evolves.
EU air passenger rights are therefore already part of Serbian law. Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 was transposed through the Law on Obligations and the Basics of Property Relations in Air Transport (ZOOSPOVS, Official Gazette of RS nos. 87/2011, 66/2015 and 96/2025). The Serbian Civil Aviation Directorate confirms that the EU passenger-rights rules have been transposed in full, so that air passengers in Serbia exercise essentially the same rights as passengers within the EU. The territorial scope is keyed to the ECAA area: flights departing a Serbian airport are covered by ZOOSPOVS, as are qualifying flights into the ECAA area operated by an ECAA carrier.
The mechanism for updating that framework is built into the ECAA Agreement itself. Once the revised regulation is adopted at EU level, the ECAA Joint Committee incorporates it by updating Annex I to the agreement, which lists the EU acts applicable across the common aviation area. A Joint Committee decision is binding on the contracting parties, and Serbia is then required to take the necessary measures — that is, to align ZOOSPOVS with the revised regulation. In other words, harmonisation is a treaty obligation rather than a policy choice, which is why an update to ZOOSPOVS should be expected to follow. The precise timing depends on when the Joint Committee updates Annex I, but the direction is settled — and Serbia has already shown its readiness to keep the law current, having amended ZOOSPOVS as recently as 2025.
What it means in practice
For travellers flying to and from Belgrade, the trajectory is a clear step forward: the same modernised standard that EU passengers will enjoy — simpler and faster claims, transparent baggage pricing, and stronger protection for families and passengers with reduced mobility — is set to flow into Serbian law through the ECAA. For airlines, travel businesses and in-house teams operating in the Serbian market, it means predictability and a level playing field across a single, converging aviation area, with clearer rules on claims handling and pricing.
The information contained in this document does not constitute legal advice regarding any specific matter and is provided for general informational purposes only.
