When you’re in the middle of your trip, it’s inevitable that some things are going to go wrong. With luck, they’ll be fairly minor. You might miss a reservation or have weather change your plans. It could be that you come down with an illness or have to change the planned itinerary.

Then, there are the more serious impacts. One of those is being impacted by a strike. I’ve had this happen a few times in my travelling life. Most recently, I was caught up in the Air Canada strike of 2025. Originally, I thought I would manage to avoid it by a few days, but my luck ran out. Instead, I wound up having my flight cancelled on me the day before I was due to fly.

Luckily, I was at the tail-end of my vacation, in an amazing place (Paris). Even better, I was on a solo trip, and had plenty of vacation days I could take from work. Other people weren’t so lucky.

So what should you do if you’re impacted? Here’s a few tips of the experience I went through to assist if you’re a solo traveller stuck out there because of an airline strike.

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Should you get a refund or rebook?

This is going to be your first hurdle. With the airline strike, the first thing that happened was the attempt to rebook. For some people, like me, that meant that within an hour of being told that my flight was cancelled, I was in the airline’s portal and had found a new flight that was twenty-four hours later, in the same class, but on a different airline. It was still direct, too.

The airline isn’t under any requirement for the flight to be direct. If you find something that gets you home without much fuss, jump on it. I know I did.

However, there is a chance that there won’t be capacity to rebook you. Being a solo traveller, I was lucky in that I was only trying to find a single space. When I was younger, my family and I were impacted by a strike and were stranded in Italy for two weeks. That was because there were so many of us and it was peak travel season. Luckily, we had family in the country and could absorb some of our costs by avoiding hotels, but it’s just to show that sometimes, rebooking isn’t possible. If that’s the case, then you’ll receive a refund for your ticket.

Careful, though. If you take the refund, you’re essentially waiving the airline’s responsibilities to get you home and putting it all on your own plate. Weigh the two options for yourself. As a solo traveller, I recommend the rebooking option unless you absolutely are not getting anywhere.

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You may be entitled to (EU) compensation

Certain countries have better passenger rights than others. That’s certainly true if you’re in the EU. Make sure to keep your receipts when you book new hotels, eat meals, and for any travel expenses. Then, on top of that, you get up to €600 per passenger for the delay, cancellation, or impact to your travel.

You can read more about who’s eligible for compensation in Forbes’ article here.

Now, keep in mind that it could take a long time to get the compensation. While Air Canada has agreed to pay me out, it took over three months to get my compensation. I did end up using a claims agency to help reduce my stress, but they also take 1/3 of what you get, so keep that in mind. It might be worth the work if you want to get every single dollar back in your pocket from the interruption in your experience.

Still, it’s a relief to know that you’re going to see some form of compensation if you’re in Europe and were impacted, so keep your receipts, your plane tickets, communications about the change, and get ready to be patient and jump through some hoops.

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What if I’m not in Europe and want compensation?

If you aren’t travelling from a country that has strong passenger protections, you might not be out of luck. First, if you’ve purchased travel insurance (specifically for trip interruption), this might be your easiest bet to get some money back. It doesn’t cost too much to purchase additional insurance, so if you’re worried about airline action taking place, this might be a good way to protect yourself. I’ve purchased trip insurance a few times (more during COVID times), and it was never too expensive. Some companies even offer annual options that protect you for your trip throughout a full twelve-month period. If you’re a frequent traveller, that option can make it a lot cheaper on the whole.

There’s also insurance on some credit cards, providing that you booked the majority of the trip with the same card. This may be capped at a certain rate, so you’re not likely to get everything back, but it’s still better than nothing in the worst case scenario.

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Okay, I’m stuck. Now what?

So now that you’ve made your rebooked plans and you’re getting your receipts in order to get compensated, what do you do? As difficult as it may be in a stressful situation, this is the time to enjoy yourself. You’re stuck. That’s out of your control. Make your arrangements, do as much as you can, and then find ways to enjoy your unexpected extension (LINK TO DISNEY PARIS IF READY)

In some ways, you’re getting a bit of a bonus vacation and spending every moment of it stressed is only going to end up detracting from your overall experience in the end.

My biggest recommendation is to try and limit your stress. There are a lot of online resources and in a situation like this, you won’t be in this boat alone. Check Reddit for updates on the strike, keep connected, and try to make the best of it. After all, once you do your due diligence to try and find a way home, you can try and enjoy yourself to have a great story to tell one day.

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