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Flight cancellations are a daily reality in the airline industry. Since the European Regulation EC 261/2004, any passenger whose flight is cancelled by the airline is entitled to a full refund or re-routing, with compensation ranging from 250 to 600 euros depending on the distance. These rights are now well known to travelers, and the resulting volume of claims is substantial. Airlines, insurers, booking agencies, and banks all process thousands of files every week. Part of their analysis relies on the supporting documents submitted by claimants, which can open the door to attempts at document fraud.
In what cases can you get a refund for a cancelled flight?
When a flight is cancelled by the airline, passengers may be eligible for several measures provided for by European Regulation EC 261/2004.
Depending on the circumstances, the airline must offer:
- a full refund of the ticket
- re-routing to the final destination under comparable conditions
Depending on the situation, it may also cover expenses incurred due to the cancellation, such as accommodation, meals, or transport.
However, this provision does not apply when the cancellation is initiated by the traveler. In the event of sudden illness, the death of a loved one, or another event covered by the contract, the refund depends on the cancellation insurance potentially purchased at the time of booking.
To benefit from this, the traveler must provide the requested supporting documents, most often medical or administrative. It is often in these cases that the risk of fraud arises!
Good to know: If you wish, Service-Public.fr provides detailed information on passenger rights!
Why have supporting documents become a prime target for fraudsters?
Reimbursement requests often rely on the submission of supporting documents.
Depending on the situation, airlines, insurers, or booking platforms may request a medical certificate, a booking confirmation, a ticket invoice, or proof of expenses incurred during the trip.
Because they are essential to the review of claims, these documents are also a prime target for fraudsters. According to the 2024 report from the Agency for the Fight against Insurance Fraud (ALFA), 40% of fraud detected in the sector is based on the use of forged documents, ahead of other methods.
Fraudsters know which documents are typically expected and seek to falsify them to make their claims appear credible.
Faced with a sometimes very high volume of claims to process, it can be difficult for teams to examine every document in detail. The most convincing forgeries risk going unnoticed if they are not subject to appropriate checks.
The main types of forged documents encountered by airlines
The forged medical certificate
The medical certificate is one of the most frequently forged documents because it allows for refunds that would otherwise be impossible.
Many tickets are non-refundable, except in specific situations provided for by the terms of sale or by cancellation insurance.
To bypass these restrictions, some travelers present a forged medical certificate. This can be an entirely fabricated document or an authentic certificate that has been altered, for example by replacing a doctor's name, changing a date, or rewriting a diagnosis.
In practice, these certificates are not always verified with the healthcare professional who supposedly issued them, which leaves the door open to forgeries that are difficult to spot with the naked eye.
The same falsification techniques are also found in other types of document fraud, particularly regarding prescriptions and medical documents.
A case tried in Switzerland clearly illustrates the logic behind these frauds. A man took out five different travel insurance policies for the same trip, then submitted a fake medical certificate to each one to claim multiple refunds.
The fraud was only discovered when he mistakenly sent a duplicate cancellation confirmation to one of the insurers, triggering an audit.
Fake invoices or booking confirmations
Fraudsters can also alter an invoice or booking confirmation to obtain a higher refund than they are actually entitled to. The amount paid, the travel date, or even the passenger's name can be tampered with.
In more sophisticated cases, the document is entirely recreated using templates available online, incorporating the airline's graphic elements, such as its logo, typography, or the format of its booking reference number.
The same fake airline ticket can then circulate from one operator to another, slightly modified each time.
Fake invoices and expense receipts
A flight cancellation can also lead to a request for reimbursement of expenses incurred on-site, such as a hotel night, a taxi ride, or a meal.
In the vast majority of cases, these expenses are legitimate, but verification becomes difficult when teams have to process a large number of files under tight deadlines, leaving little time for a detailed check of each supporting document.
Some fraudsters take advantage of this to change the amount on a receipt, retouch a hotel bill, or create a fake transport receipt. Because they generally involve limited amounts, these documents can more easily go unnoticed if their authenticity is not verified.
The ALFA (The Insurance Fraud Agency), for example, investigated a network selling ready-to-use fake hospital invoice kits on Snapchat. Each fraudulent file claimed an average of 10,000 euros in reimbursements. While this case involves healthcare, the logic is identical for travel expenses: small individual amounts, multiplied across a large number of files, represent significant overall losses.
Document fraud: forgeries that are increasingly difficult to detect
Fake documents have become increasingly sophisticated in recent years. According to the 2025 initial report from the Tessi Observatory on document fraud, the falsification of digital documents increased by 244% between 2023 and 2024.
This trend is largely due to easier access to document creation and editing tools.
The Tessi Observatory report also notes that fraudsters favor three methods: 34% use image editing software, 32% use generative AI solutions, and 30% use specialized websites.
The different types of fake documents seen today are varied. Some are entirely generated, while others result from the modification of an authentic document. Even when these edits are imperceptible to the naked eye, they can leave traces in the file's metadata, such as the software used, the creation or last modification date, or the document's author.
Analyzing this information, which is inaccessible without dedicated tools, can play a key role in detecting falsification.
Automated document analysis for verification
Given the volume of files and the quality of the forgeries in circulation, manual checks are reaching their limits. Automated document analysis solutions allow for processing the entire incoming flow without slowing down operations.
These tools analyze files at several levels simultaneously: consistency of declared data with document content, detection of graphic modifications, metadata analysis, and comparison with previously processed documents.
AI applied to fake document detection offers a real advantage: it allows for the processing of high volumes of supporting documents, identifies anomalies invisible to the naked eye, and focuses human verification only on the files that truly require it.
A fake medical certificate rejected by one company can thus be recognized if it reappears with another insurer a few days later.
Refunds for cancelled flights are a fundamental right. To ensure legitimate claims are processed quickly and that abuse does not undermine the entire system, companies need reliable document verification processes that can scale with their volume.
Looking to secure your refund procedures while maintaining fast processing times? Speak with one of our experts.
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