Montreal Convention Baggage Compensation Explained (UK/EU Guide)

Almost every guide on this site, and every airline's own baggage policy, eventually points to the same source: the Montreal Convention. It's mentioned constantly and explained rarely, which leaves most travellers knowing the name without knowing what it actually says.

Here's what the Montreal Convention is, what it actually covers, what it's worth in real money, and where it fits alongside travel insurance.

What the Montreal Convention Actually Is

The Montreal Convention is an international treaty, signed in 1999, that standardises airline liability for passengers and baggage on international flights. Before it existed, liability rules varied hugely between countries and airlines, which made claiming compensation inconsistent and often unclear.

It applies to international carriage by air, including flights to, from, and within the UK and EU, regardless of which airline you fly with, as long as that airline is a party to the Convention (the vast majority of major carriers are). Domestic flights within a single country can be governed by separate national rules, though in practice UK and EU carriers generally apply similar standards across their networks.

What It Actually Covers

The Convention treats damage, loss and delay as three separate categories of baggage liability, each with its own rules.

Damage

The airline is liable for damage to checked baggage that occurs any time between check-in and the bag being returned to you. This is the category most of this site focuses on: cracked shells, broken wheels, torn fabric, damaged handles.

Loss

If a bag never turns up, it's generally treated as officially lost once 21 days have passed with no delivery, and a separate compensation process applies.

Delay

If your bag arrives later than you do, you may be entitled to compensation for reasonable expenses incurred while you were without it, such as essential replacement items, up to the same overall liability cap.

This guide focuses on the damage category. For the full process of reporting and claiming damage specifically, see: Airline Damaged Your Luggage? What to Do and How to Claim Compensation

The Compensation Cap: SDR Explained

The Convention caps airline liability at 1,288 Special Drawing Rights (SDR) per passenger for baggage. SDR is not a currency you'll ever hold, it's an accounting unit used by the International Monetary Fund, based on a basket of major currencies, and it's used here specifically so the cap doesn't need renegotiating every time exchange rates move.

Converted to pounds, 1,288 SDR currently works out to somewhere in the region of £1,300 to £1,600, depending on the day's exchange rate. That's the maximum, not a guaranteed payout: it's the ceiling the airline's liability cannot exceed, not a fixed amount you're automatically owed regardless of what was damaged. Actual compensation is based on the cost to repair or replace what was damaged, up to that cap.

For a detailed breakdown of realistic payout amounts rather than just the legal maximum, see: How Much Compensation for Damaged Luggage?

The Reporting Deadlines

The Convention sets strict, and short, windows for reporting problems, and these are among the most commonly missed parts of the whole process.

• 7 days — a written complaint for damaged baggage must reach the airline within 7 days of receiving the bag.
• 21 days — a delayed bag is generally treated as lost once 21 days pass without delivery.
• 2 years — the outer limit for bringing a court action against the airline under the Convention, after which the right to claim is extinguished entirely.

The 7-day damage deadline is the one that catches the most people out, because it's easy to assume a phone call or a PIR filed at the airport is enough on its own. It isn't — a formal written complaint is required within that window. We've covered exactly how this works, including what counts as valid written notice, here: How Long Do You Have to Claim for Damaged Luggage?

Where Liability Doesn't Apply

The Convention includes a small number of exclusions worth knowing. Airlines generally aren't liable for damage that results from an inherent defect or quality of the baggage itself (a case that was already structurally weak, unrelated to handling), or for normal wear and tear from ordinary use rather than a specific incident.

This exclusion is legitimate, but airlines also lean on it more often than the facts justify, using it as a default rejection even for damage that's clearly sudden and structural rather than gradual. If you've had a claim rejected on this basis, it's worth checking carefully rather than accepting it: Can Airlines Refuse to Pay for Damaged Luggage?

How the Convention Relates to Travel Insurance

The Montreal Convention is a legal liability, not an insurance product, and it applies whether or not you separately bought travel insurance. It's also the primary route: most travel insurance policies expect you to claim against the airline first when the airline caused the damage, and will treat any airline payout as reducing what they owe. Insurance exists to cover the gaps, damage that exceeds the Convention's cap, damage that happened outside the airline's care, or situations where the 7-day window has already closed. The two systems compared in full: Does Travel Insurance Cover Damaged Luggage?

Final Thoughts

The Montreal Convention is the legal foundation underneath essentially every damaged luggage claim in the UK and EU: it's why airlines are liable at all, what the maximum payout can be, and how long you have to act. Knowing the actual mechanics, the SDR cap, the 7-day window, the damage-versus-wear-and-tear line, turns a vague sense of "I think I'm covered" into a claim you can actually argue with confidence.

BaggageRepairs.com is a professional luggage repair and assessment service. We carry out physical repairs at our UK workshop and provide independent online damage evaluations for customers worldwide, used in airline compensation claims, insurance submissions, and dispute resolution.