Every disruption produces two records. One is the airline's, which is complete, timestamped, and not yours. The other is whatever you happened to keep, which is usually a screenshot of the wrong thing and a memory that has already started rearranging itself. The gap between those two records is where an argument about facts starts.
The good news is that the list of things worth capturing is short, and most of it is screenshots and times written down on the day.
Order by how fast it disappears
Capture in this order, because that is the order in which these things stop being obtainable.
First, the itinerary as it was sold. Airline apps update in place. The moment you are rebooked, the schedule you originally bought vanishes from the screen and is replaced by the new one. Screenshot the original before you touch anything else. If you already have a confirmation email, that is the same information and it will not change — but check that it shows times and flight numbers, not just a link.
Second, the message that changed it. The notification, email, or text that told you, with its timestamp visible. When you were told is a fact that several frameworks turn on, and the airline's own message is direct evidence of it.
Third, the times. The time you actually boarded, the time the aircraft actually pushed back, and — above all — the time you actually arrived at your final destination, meaning when the aircraft parked and the doors opened. Write them down the same day. A photograph of the arrivals board with a phone timestamp is better than a recollection a week later.
Fourth, what the airline said. Not a paraphrase — the words. A chat transcript, an email, the reason field in the app, or a photograph of a printed notice at the gate. What an agent said at a desk is unrecoverable, so if you receive something useful verbally, send yourself a message repeating it while you are standing there.
Fifth, receipts. Meals, a hotel, transport to and from it, a replacement ticket. These are the slowest-decaying items on the list because they exist on your card statement anyway, but the paper version is better than the line item.
What an assessment actually consumes
DelayPilot's rights assessment is a function of explicit facts, and the list is not mysterious. It takes the date of the event, the origin and destination, the operating carrier, the structure of your journey, the scheduled and actual times, what kind of event it was, when you were notified, what you chose to do, what the airline stated as the cause and who stated it, the distance, and the expenses you incurred.
Look at that list against what people typically keep and the mismatch is obvious. Most people keep receipts, which are near the bottom, and lose the notice timestamp and the true arrival time, which are near the top.
Where a fact is missing, our assessment says which one is missing rather than filling the gap. That is a design choice, and it means the quality of your capture directly controls how definite an answer anyone can give you — us, the airline, or a regulator.
Keep the story, not just the documents
A file of screenshots without an order is hard to use. Once you are somewhere calm, write a single plain chronology: what was scheduled, what you were told and when, what you did, what you spent, when you arrived. Ten lines is plenty.
That chronology does three things. It surfaces the gaps while you can still fill them. It becomes the body of any message you send the airline, which is more effective than a page of feelings. And it stops your account from drifting, which matters if the matter runs for months.
DelayPilot's evidence packet — a print-optimised, factual summary that assembles exactly this chronology alongside the assessment and its rule-set version — is specified in DIRECTIVE.md §18.5 and has not been built yet. Until it exists, a document in your own notes does the same job. Nothing on this page depends on the feature.
What not to keep, and what we never ask for
Some things are a liability rather than an asset.
Do not photograph your payment card. The last four digits on a receipt are enough to tie a purchase to you.
Do not collect passport pages, identity documents, or traveller numbers into a claim folder. They are rarely what is being asked for, and a folder of them in a cloud drive is a much larger problem than a disputed fare.
Do not share your airline account password with anyone, including a family member helping you or any service that offers to handle the claim. A service that needs your airline login is asking for the ability to act as you.
DelayPilot asks for none of the above. A flight is looked up from its number and its date, we do not read inboxes, we do not hold identity documents, and we do not file anything on anyone's behalf. That is recorded as a privacy invariant in AGENTS.md §2 rather than as a preference, which means it is not something a future feature can quietly trade away.
What you still need to know
Two questions decide how much of this matters. Whether your journey sat on one reservation or several, because that changes which facts are relevant. And what the airline states as the cause, which you obtain by asking in writing rather than by inferring from the weather.
Both are covered in the rights material: start at how DelayPilot assesses passenger rights for the vocabulary, then the jurisdiction page for your journey when it is published.
What to do now, in order
- Screenshot the original itinerary before accepting any change. Under a minute, and irreplaceable.
- Screenshot the notification with its timestamp.
- Write down the actual arrival time at your final destination on the day you arrive.
- Ask the airline in writing for its stated reason, in one sentence, while the disruption is fresh.
- Photograph receipts as you go, rather than collecting paper you will lose.
- Write the ten-line chronology the same week, while the order of events is still clear.
- Leave identity documents and card details out of the file entirely.
Sources
This page makes no external regulatory claim. It documents what DelayPilot's own assessment consumes and how the product handles personal data, citing DIRECTIVE.md §15 (rights-engine inputs), DIRECTIVE.md §18.5 (the specified evidence packet), DIRECTIVE.md §26 (disclaimers), and AGENTS.md §2 (privacy invariants). Deadlines and thresholds are deliberately absent here; they belong to the jurisdiction pages, where they render from a versioned rule set.
Informational estimate, not legal advice. Eligibility depends on the full facts, current law, and the airline or regulator's determination.