Flight cancellations happen more often than you think and have become even more common since the COVID-19 pandemic started. There are many reasons why a flight could get cancelled, which could either be within the airline’s control or completely out of their control like in the case of an adverse weather condition. However, most people have no idea what to do when their flight gets cancelled. Anyone could get frustrated at the thought of it but do you know you might be entitled to flight cancellation compensation? This article provides a quick guide on what to do if your flight ever gets cancelled.

Step 1: Know what the flight cancellation compensation is

The flight cancellation compensation is the EU 261/2004 regulation that exists to protect passengers’ rights when their flight is delayed or cancelled and in the event of overbooking or denied boarding. Under this regulation, affected passengers are entitled to monetary compensation between €250 to €600, depending on the distance of the flight.

How the flight distance is calculated

• Short distance – Below 1500km (e.g. London – Edinburgh) – €250 compensation
• Medium distance – Between 1500km and 3500km ( e.g. London – Athens) – €400 compensation
• Long-distance – Over 3500km (e.g. London – Tokyo) – €600 compensation

How do you know if this regulation applies to you?

Use this checklist to know if you are entitled to flight cancellation compensation.

• You started your trip at an EU airport, or landed in an EU airport, with the airline headquartered in the EU.
• The airline informed you of the cancellation less than 14 days before the original departure date.
• The reason for the cancellation was within the airline’s control and could have been avoided.

Apart from the standard monetary compensation, you may also be entitled to a ticket refund or a replacement flight.

Step 2: Stay alert for notifications

In many cases, you would be notified if there are any disruptions to your flight. If you signed up for airline alerts, whether with your telephone number or email address, expect to get notified of any changes. Whether or not you get notified and also the timing of the notification can play a huge role in you getting compensated. According to the EC 261 law, you will only be entitled to flight compensation if you were informed less than 14 days before the departure date.

If you had already checked in before being notified, you might be entitled to other things. This includes the right to care, such as access to a telephone, internet, food and drinks, and hotel accommodation through the night.

Step 3: Find out why the flight was cancelled

If you got any notification on your cancelled flight, check if the reason for the cancellation was included. You can also contact the airline directly to request why. Common reasons for flight cancellations often include adverse weather conditions, security threats, the crew out of time, strikes, air traffic control restrictions, lack of passengers, lack of crew or pilot, and mechanical issues, among others. These reasons might be valid but shouldn’t be at the cost of your itinerary plans.

To be entitled to compensation, the reason for the cancellation must be within the airline’s control. There are many things the airline can’t control such as an earthquake or hurricane where they have no choice but to cancel flights. However, for minor reasons completely within their control, they should completely bear the cost and compensate you.

Step 4: Review your itinerary

A cancelled flight could disrupt many other plans, including causing a ripple effect on connecting flights. While you may be upset about the change of plans, this will also be a good time to review your itinerary. Were you supposed to get a connecting flight? You can easily reschedule the flight if it’s on the same airline that cancelled. However, if it’s on another airline entirely and will cost you extra to reschedule, you may want to factor that into your compensation claims.

Step 5: Contact the airline

The next thing you want to do after your flight has been cancelled is to kick start the process of getting properly compensated. After finding out why it was cancelled and confirming it was within the airline’s control, you can contact the airline. Most airlines have a hotline you can easily reach to ask questions or take the next steps. You can also check the airline’s website for a contact form, email address, or form to file a compensation claim. If you are at the airport already, you can talk to the staff directly but remember to keep your discussions or arguments civil.

Step 6: Describe what happened

Once you’ve contacted the airline, you will have to describe what happened in detail. Start by highlighting your flight details, the reason you were given for the cancellation, and whether or not you were notified before the departure date. Then, you can indicate how much you believe you are entitled to and ensure you include the accurate quote from the EC 261 regulation. While you do this, consider reviewing the flight cancellation policies of the airline. Although the EC 261 law covers airlines from EU member states, each airline may also have its specific policies. Check their website to see if there’s any you should take into consideration.

Step 7: Take advantage of higher authorities

Getting compensated for a cancelled flight isn’t always that straightforward and the airline may refuse to compensate you despite your effort. If that’s the case, you may reach out to the National Enforcement Body (NEB) or an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). These bodies are there to assist you and ensure the airline compensates you properly. For an easier and more effective process, you can get a lawyer or go through agencies like Flightright to help you claim your compensation accordingly.

Bottom Line

No one likes to deal with unannounced flight disruptions but should you find yourself in such a situation, you should work on getting your cancelled flight compensation. Understanding your rights as an air passenger makes it easier to kickstart the process of getting compensated and these quick easy steps will guide you.

Taking photos in sunny conditions can often be challenging due to the negative effects of the strong light. But with a few simple tips you can learn to work with the sun and use it to your advantage. In this tutorial you’ll discover 10 essential techniques to help you take better iPhone photos in the sun.

1. Shoot With The Sun Behind You

One of the first lessons you learn in photography is to shoot with the sun behind you. If the sun is behind you, the subject in your photo will be illuminated from the front, ensuring that your subject is evenly and well lit.

Shooting with the sun behind you is great for landscape photography as it allows your camera to capture a well lit scene with blue sky, clouds and plenty of detail. At sunset, shooting with the sun behind you creates a lovely warm light in your scene.

If you’re taking portrait photos in very bright sun, shooting with the sun behind you may not be a good idea as your subject will be looking into the sun and may end up squinting. In these cases, you may want to find a bit of shade to move into.

If your subject is close to you, make sure you don’t create a shadow of yourself on the subject. Unless of course you’re trying to block the light from the sun so that your subject doesn’t appear in direct sunlight.

2. Adjust Image Exposure

When shooting in bright sun you may need to adjust the exposure of your image. Exposure refers to how bright or dark the image is.

Once you’ve tapped on the screen to set focus on your subject, check the viewfinder to see if the image is exposed correctly.

You can then easily adjust exposure using the exposure control in the native camera app (only available in iOS 8). Simply swipe down on the screen and the exposure slider with a sun icon will appear.

Move the exposure slider up or down to adjust the brightness of the image. Once, you’re happy with the exposure, tap the shutter button to take the photo.

3. Shoot With The Sun To One Side

As you have already seen, if you shoot with the sun behind you, the subject in your photo will be evenly lit from the front. This is desirable in many situations, but it often doesn’t make for a very interesting photo.

By changing the position of your subject relative to the sun, you can make the lighting in your photo much more interesting and dramatic.

If you shoot with the sun to one side of you, part of your subject will be well lit and part of it will be in shadow. You can see this in the photo above where the sun is shining into the photo from the left hand side.

The left side of the subjects are illuminated and the right side is in dark shadow. This makes the photo more interesting to look at as your eye will move from light to shade and back again.

Side-lighting can work well for any subject, but it can be especially effective with portrait photos. As well as creating a much more interesting photo, it has the added benefit of your subject not having to look directly into the sun which can make them squint.

4.  Shoot Into The Sun To Create Silhouettes

When you first start learning about photography you’re often told not to shoot into the sun as it will ruin your photograph. However, photography isn’t fun unless you break the rules! 

If you master a few simple techniques, shooting into the sun can actually result in incredibly stunning photographs. When the sun is in front of you, your subject will be lit from the back rather than from the front, which is why we call this technique “backlighting.”

Shooting into the sun can create a variety of interesting effects, and one of the most powerful of these effects is silhouettes. A silhouette is where your subject appears as a dark shape against a bright background.

To create a silhouette photo, start by positioning the sun or bright sky behind your subject. Now set the exposure for the bright sky. This ensures that the sky is captured with good color and detail, and as a result your subject will appear dark.

If you don’t do this, your camera might expose correctly for your subject, in which case the subject will appear too bright for a silhouette photo.

To expose for the sky, simply tap on the sky in the viewfinder. You can then tweak the exposure if necessary by swiping up or down on the screen to adjust the image brightness.

It’s usually best to shoot silhouette photos from a low angle. If you shoot from standing height you can end up with a lot of dark background behind the bottom half of the subject, and this won’t make your silhouetted subject stand out well.

Silhouette photos will have much more impact if the subject has only a bright sky behind them. Shooting from a low angle will help you get more sky behind the subject.

5. Backlight Your Subject To Reveal Color And Detail

You’ve just seen that backlighting can result in your subject appearing as a dark silhouette. However, if you use the sun to backlight a semi-transparent subject, the result can be completely different.

With semi-transparent objects such as leaves and flowers, positioning them so that the sun is shining through them can reveal color, texture and detail that you wouldn’t normally see.

This example of flowers shot with the sun behind them is a great example of this. The light shining through the semi-transparent petals has revealed their intricate detail and produced a vivid pink color.

With this type of shot you need to set the exposure for the subject rather than for the sky, otherwise the subject may appear as a silhouette.

To expose for the subject, simply tap on that area of the screen. You can then tweak the brightness using the exposure slider in the camera app if necessary.

6. Capture A Glow Around Your Subject

Another effect of positioning the sun behind your subject is something we call rim lighting. This is where you see a lovely warm glow or outline of light around the edge of your subject.

Rim lighting has the effect of separating your subject from the background, which is great in photos like this one. The thin outline of light around the horse makes it stand out much better against the dark background.

Rim lighting is especially noticeable around hair, so it works particularly well in portrait photos. Next time you’re shooting in the sun, look for rim lighting especially around people’s heads.

To achieve rim lighting around your subject, you may need to move around and experiment with your shooting angle until the sun is in the right position to create this effect.

Be careful not to let the sun dominate and ruin the picture. Try positioning the subject’s head or body directly in front of the sun to block out most of the bright light, or have the sun shining in from the edge of the frame.

7. Take Control Of Lens Flare

One of the major problems with taking photos in bright sun is that they can often be ruined by lens flare. Lens flare is caused by strong light hitting the camera’s lens and scattering through the optical elements.

This results in streaks or blobs of light across the photo, as you can see in the image below. Lens flare often degrades image quality by causing areas of overexposure or an overall lack of contrast.

Lens flare can be prevented by making sure there’s no direct light hitting the lens. You can do this by shading the lens from the sun with your hand – just make sure your hand doesn’t appear in the photo.

Alternatively, stand in the shade when you take the picture. Or avoid shooting into the sun in the first place.

You may however want to take a completely different approach and actually embrace lens flare in your photos. If you know how to control lens flare effectively, including it in your photo can actually enhance a photo taken in bright sun.

Once you know how to harness it, lens flare can be a great creative tool, adding drama or a romantic mood to your image.

To achieve lens flare without ruining your photo, you need to get just the right amount of light to hit the lens without over-exposing too much of the image. Positioning tree branches in front of the sun can help prevent large over-exposed areas.

For a more subtle lens flare effect, try changing your shooting angle so the sun is shining into the photo from one side, rather than shooting directly into the sun.

The key to achieving lens flare that looks good is to experiment with your shooting angle, and to get the subject in the right position relative to the sun.

8. Capture Shadows

Shadows are a great way of adding interest to a photo. Shadows are created when an object blocks the light from the sun and prevents that light from hitting the surface behind the subject.

As well as adding visual interest to an image, shadows can create mystery and intrigue, making the viewer wonder what’s hiding in the darker areas of the image.

In bright midday sun, shadows can appear very harsh. This often isn’t good for portraits as you can end up with dark shadows around the eyes, nose and under the chin. But captured correctly and in the right situation, harsh shadows can create a very dramatic image.

The best time of day for capturing shadows is usually when the sun is low in the sky. At this time of day shadows appear very long and can be used to fill an otherwise empty space in your photos.

Shadows even make great subjects in themselves, becoming the main focus of the photo. When shooting scenes with long shadows, try shooting from a low angle so that the shadows become more prominent in the foreground of the image.

9. Position An Object In Front Of The Sun

If the sun is ruining your photo, try eliminating the harsh light by positioning the sun behind an object in the scene. This could be a person, a tree, a building or any other object that is big enough to cover the sun.

In the photo above I made sure I shot from an angle where the sun would be positioned behind the tree on the left. This prevented unwanted lens flare or a large over-exposed area in the sky.

Alternatively, if there are clouds in the sky, wait for a cloud to move across and partially obscure the sun before taking your photo. You can get some great effects when the sun is shining our from the edge of a cloud, such as lens flare and glowing edges around the clouds.

10. Don’t Forget Composition In Sunset Photos

Sunset is the most beautiful type of light to shoot in. The rich, warm colors of the sky and interesting cloud formations make for stunning photos that often require little or no editing.

However, a lot of sunset photography often looks quite boring and doesn’t hold the viewer’s attention for long. This is because many people don’t think about how to compose their photos of sunsets – probably because they’re concentrating too much on the pretty sky.

While the beautiful colors of the sky are one of the main points of interest in the photo, you should also try to include a focal point or other points of interest for the view to rest their eye on.

A focal point could be a tree, a person, a building, etc. This focal point often ends up as a dark silhouette, but this is fine – the shape of the object against the sky creates something for the viewer to focus on once they’ve looked around the photo.

The sunset photo above wouldn’t really be that interesting if it didn’t include the person and the dog. And you would have nowhere to rest your eye in the image.

Also, think about where to position the horizon, the sun and the main subject in the frame. These things often look better placed off-centre rather than in the middle of the photo. You can use the rule of thirds to help you position the elements in the image.

Leading lines can also help draw your eye into the image. The converging lines of the track in the photo above do a great job of leading your eye towards the setting sun.

Imagine you are backpacking throughout the monsoon with dark clouds, noises of thunder, and raindrops trickling down your face. Feels so refreshing, doesn’t it? This experience is sure to wash all your stress away and connect you even deeper into nature. But there are some things to be concerned about, in the pursuit to travel in monsoon seasons. Things like what? Slippery terrains, damp clothes, and unplanned hassles. Don’t worry! We got you covered!

While the rainy season is arriving, you have probably created your schedule and added a long list of things to do to your vacation checklist. But something like a sudden thunderstorm might make your plans go awry. While nothing may be available for you to transport, you will have to wait somewhere until the storm subsides and that totally sounds like a mood kill! Worry not! There are a few steps you can take to ensure traveling in the rain seamlessly.

We have created a list of some monsoon travel tips for you to check out. Go through this list and we assure you that you will be able to enjoy the beautiful monsoon.

Carrying synthetic clothes

While you may have been planning your dream trip and already decided what to wear on your first day of arriving at your destination, you probably won’t be giving much thought to the material of the clothes you would wear, right? This is where many travelers make a mistake. Most of the monsoon tips from travel experts suggest that you carry clothing that is light and easily manageable. We would recommend you to carry simple synthetic clothing items because they dry up quickly. Avoid wearing jeans as much as possible because we all know how long that takes to dry!

Medicines and Repellents

Keeping aside the appreciation for monsoon, this is a time when insects are also on the rise because of the puddles of water everywhere. You wouldn’t want to fall sick on your vacation, would you? So adhering to error-free monsoon traveling tips, it is best to carry repellents and medicines to make sure that these insects don’t get to disturb you.

Avoid street food

There is so much to see in Lisbon that no matter how long you’re there for, you’ll wish you were staying longer.

Lisbon is one of the most culture-driven cities in all of Europe.

From its rich history to its brilliant architecture, and mouth-watering food, you’ll be sure to enjoy any trip.

Still not convinced? Then here are five reasons you should jet off on a new adventure to this amazing city.

1) Fantastic attractions
There is so much to see in Lisbon that no matter how long you’re there for, you’ll wish you were staying longer.

From the Christ the King statue – based on Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer – to the fairy tale surroundings of Sintra just forty minutes from the city, you’ll never be short of activities.

The architecture highlights the city’s rich history, such as the Belem Tower constructed in 1514 and the Jerónimos Monastery, making it a must for any culture lover.

2) Stunning surroundings
Lisbon is visually beautiful. Busy alleyways, quaint bakeries, and incredibly tiled pavements.

Make sure your phone is fully charged so you can fill up your storage with photographs of the amazing scenery that this unique destination has to offer.

3) Fascinating museums
If you venture abroad to learn, then the wide variety of museums that Lisbon has on offer makes it the perfect place.

There is the eccentric National Coach Museum, which boasts the most extensive collection of historical coaches in the world, and the far more conventional Museum of Art, Architecture, and Technology.

And, if you’re travelling with little ones, be sure to check out the oceanarium. The main aquarium holds five million litres of seawater and is home to sea creatures from all over the world.

4) Great transport
A city is only as good as it’s transport system, and Lisbon’s transport is fantastic.

In fact, the number 28 tram is a famous tourist attraction itself; visitors are drawn to the sight of a little yellow carriage climbing up narrow streets.

Lisbon’s tram network will take you anywhere you might possibly need to go, but as it also serves commuters too, you’d be best avoiding rush hour as not to get in anyone’s way.

Alternatively, if you’re interested in a more informative experience, then consider one of the tourist trams, here you’ll be able to learn as you travel.

5) Beautiful beaches
Lisbon isn’t just a vibrant city – it’s also a draw for the beach lovers out there.

A short train ride from the centre of the city will take you right to the seaside and the lovely boardwalk where you can admire the view, take a dip in the ocean, and walk along the sand.

The easy access from the city to the beach makes Lisbon the perfect destination for any travel lover.