Open the free airport checklist →
What hour six looks like
Recently a friend of mine spent a night stranded at an airport. His flight slipped by two hours, then six, then eight, then to the next day. There was no airline desk. There was nobody to ask. He paid for a hotel and his meals himself.
When he told me about it, I noticed something. At hour six he was not asking “am I owed money?” He was asking “what do I do right now and who do I talk to?”
I spent thirty years in airlines and passenger services. I know how much a later claim depends on what a passenger collects in those first hours. I also know that almost nobody tells them.
Why nobody serves that moment
Claims agencies are built around the payout. They earn a share when you win, so they arrive weeks later, once there is money to take a cut of. There is no commission in telling a tired person which desk to walk to at two in the morning.
TripWin takes no commission. So it can.
What the checklist covers
The new page lives at tripwin.app/stranded. It is a checklist of evidence and nothing more:
- Photograph the departures board, again every few hours.
- Screenshot every message the airline sends you.
- Ask for the reason for the delay in writing. If they refuse, note who you asked and when.
- Find out which company handles the airline at that airport. Many airlines have no desk of their own.
- Keep every receipt and photograph it before the paper fades.
- Read anything before you sign it. Ask whether a voucher ends your other claims.
There is also a short card in English to show airport staff, with the translation under each line.
How it works and what it does not do
It works for any airline in any country. It comes in six languages: English, Italian, German, French, Spanish and Greek. You tick items off on your phone and the ticks stay on your phone. Nothing is sent to me.
There is a button to print it or save it as a PDF. The person who needs it most usually has a dying battery and bad airport wifi.
What it does not do is tell you what you are owed. That depends on the airline, the airports and the country. A wrong answer at that moment can cost someone more than no answer at all. So the checklist does one practical thing: helping you collect and keep the evidence you may need later.
If you fly or know someone who does
Save the link before your next trip: tripwin.app/stranded. Or send it to the person in your family who always seems to be at the gate when the board turns red.
Once you are home, the free TripWin checker tells you whether EU flight rules cover your trip. If they do, it writes the claim letter for you. No agency and no commission.
Davide
Install it on your phone like an app (free, 10 seconds):
iPhone: open tripwin.app in Safari → tap the Share button (square with arrow) → “Add to Home Screen” → Add.
Android: open tripwin.app in Chrome → tap the ⋮ menu (top right) → “Add to Home screen” (or tap the “Install app” banner) → Add.
It gets its own icon, opens full screen, and even works offline. No app store needed.