Some 150,000 Dutch air passengers were entitled to compensation totalling €66m for delays last year, according to foundations which campaign for air travellers rights.

Yet just 50% of the total has actually been paid out, foundation EUclaim say in Monday’s AD. The amounts vary from €250 for delays on a shorter European flight to €600 for continental flight delays.

Tom van Bokhoven, from foundation Vlucht-vertraagd.nl, told the AD he believes as few as 10% of passengers have had compensation.

Airlines do all they can to avoid having to pay the full amount, he said. ‘Passengers who complain and accepted a €75 voucher as compensation do not realise that this means they can not longer submit their own claim,’ Van Bokhoven said.

The foundations base their claim on the fact that 2,798 fights to or from the Netherlands were delayed last year, carrying 420,000 passengers of whom around 150,000 were Dutch.