October 6, 2025, 8:55 am | Read time: 4 minutes
You have a long-haul flight ahead and have deliberately booked a more comfortable seat with extra legroom. However, at the airport, you learn that there has been a change of aircraft–resulting in a downgrade. Instead of sitting in your desired Business or even First Class seat, you now have to settle for what is colloquially known as economy class. How affected passengers should behave in this situation and what rights they have can be read here.
Why Seat Downgrades Can Happen
At that moment, you might feel as if the sky has conspired against you. But, of course, it has nothing to do with you personally if you have to give up your booked seat for a lower class. A so-called downgrade, meaning the demotion of a passenger to a lower class, can have various reasons. This includes a change in capacity because a different aircraft with fewer premium seats had to be used. Most often, overbookings or operational decisions that require re-seating passengers to ensure balanced weight distribution in the cabin are behind it.
But clearly, for those affected, the reasons hardly matter in the end. What matters is that they have to travel in a worse seat due to a forced downgrade. If the originally booked seat is not available, it cannot be conjured up through persistent discussions. This is all the more annoying because you may have paid more for the higher class. However, you do not have to bear the costs.
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Your Rights if You Have Been Downgraded
As you can read at the Agency for Passenger and Passenger Rights (APF), the airline is “obligated to refund part of the airfare within seven days” if passengers have to fly in Economy Class instead of the booked Business Class, for example. “The amount of the refund depends on the direct flight distance of the route on which you were affected by the downgrade.” The calculation is based solely on the actual airfare. Taxes and fees, which are listed separately on the ticket, are not considered.
Amount of Refund for a Downgrade:
- Short-haul flights up to 1,500 kilometers: 30 percent of the ticket price
- Medium-haul within the EU over 1,500 kilometers: 50 percent
- International medium-haul between 1,500 and 3,500 km: also 50 percent
- Long-haul over more than 3,500 kilometers outside the EU: 75 percent
The information on the APF website–which is part of the Federal Ministry for Innovation, Mobility, and Infrastructure (BMIMI)–is based on Article 10 of the EU Regulation (EC) No. 261/2004. This regulates both downgrades and upgrades in air travel. In the case of an upgrade, meaning when a seat in a higher booking class is assigned, no additional costs may be incurred by the passenger.
How to Get Your Money Back After a Seat Downgrade
The airline is obligated to refund, and the law is clear. Nevertheless, passengers often have to actively assert their claim. In other words, airlines might try to make it complicated for those affected to get their money, for example, by referring to their “fare conditions.” Not just to be prepared for such situations, it is always important to document all booking receipts, invoices, payment proofs, etc.
Contact the airline directly for a refund of the ticket price. This also applies if you purchased the ticket through a third party. Portals can act as intermediaries in this case, but they are not obligated to refund. Be aware of this if the airline initially rejects your claim. It can be helpful to formulate the specific claim in the demand letter. For example, you could demand 75 percent of the airfare if the seat downgrade occurred on a long-haul flight with more than 3,500 kilometers outside the EU.
If you cannot achieve your goal on your own, you can seek support. A good contact for your concern is the Travel and Transport Arbitration. For legal enforcement, you can use passenger rights portals like Flightright.