cortilla
I don't have a copy of EC261 at my fingertips but I can say the following;
As written the regulation does NOT provide for compensation in case of delays, regardless of the length. It does require the airline provide 'care' in the form of food, beverages and hotac (if an overnight stay is required).
The regulation provides that compensation is payable only for 'denied-boarding' and cancellation of the flight.
If you bought any food/drinks, (and kept your receipts) the airline
could refund you - but there is a small 'get-out-of-gaol-free' card here - they don't have to provide food/beverages if doing so would exacerbate the delay (by everyone leaving the gate area to find food/drinks).
Now, I said it was complicated.
A couple of passengers on
LONG delayed flights sued their airlines and lost, they appealed and lost and kept on appealing and losing (as I said, the regulation clearly does not provide for compensation in case of delays) but finally the highest court, the European Court of Justice ruled that following the principle of consistent treatment they interpreted the regulation as providing for compensation
in some cases. As I mentioned these two cases involved delays of more than 24 hours and the court said they had suffered as much as they would have, had their flight been cancelled.
But the court did not 'rewrite' the regulation, they only interpreted it, and nobody actually knows when/how/under what circumstances compensation is now payable for delays.
A number of UK airlines took the CAA (the UK's regulator) to the UK high court arguing that the legislators (i.e. The EC, the EP and the Council) had considered compensation for delays and rejected it. They argued that the role of the ECJ is not to create legislation, but to interpret it. (Had the ECJ found the regulation to be faulty they should have sent it back to the regulators to amend it)
The High Court decided that there was enough grounds to send this back to the ECJ and has suspended the CAA (and AUC which is part of the CAA) from applying the ECJ's ruling until they reconsider their original ruling.
Sorry for such a long story but I would say that in your case the delay was not significant enough to qualify under the ECJ's vague ruling. However if you want a go you can find all of the NEBs, including France's
here.
Good luck, and let us know how you get on.