How much compensation can I claim for a delayed flight?
Short answer
£220, £350 or £520 per passenger, depending on how far you were flying. The delay must be three hours or more measured on arrival at your final destination, the flight must be covered by UK261, and the cause must not be extraordinary circumstances the airline can prove.
UK261 — the UK's retained version of EU Regulation 261/2004 — pays a fixed sum per passenger, not a share of your ticket price. A cheap fare and an expensive one on the same delayed flight attract exactly the same compensation.
The amounts, and what triggers them
- Up to 1,500 km: £220 per passenger for a delay of three hours or more.
- 1,500–3,500 km: £350 per passenger for a delay of three hours or more.
- Over 3,500 km: £520 per passenger, reduced to £260 where the delay is between three and four hours.
The delay is measured when the aircraft doors open at your final destination, against your scheduled arrival — not by how late you left. Exactly three hours is enough. Cancellations attract the same amounts if you were given less than 14 days' notice and were not rerouted at similar times, and a replacement flight that gets you in within three hours of the original schedule pays nothing.
Whether your flight qualifies
- Any flight departing a UK airport, whatever the airline's nationality and whatever fare you paid — Ryanair, easyJet and Wizz Air included.
- Flights arriving into the UK operated by a UK or EU carrier.
- A flight into the UK on a non-UK/EU carrier only counts if you departed from the UK on the outbound leg.
Care and assistance is owed separately, whatever caused the delay: meals and refreshments plus two calls or emails once you pass the threshold for your route — two hours short-haul, three medium-haul, four long-haul — and a hotel with transport if you are kept overnight. If the airline provides nothing, keep receipts for reasonable costs and claim them back.
Claim in writing to the airline with your booking reference, flight number, date and the length of the delay. If it refuses or stays silent for eight weeks, escalate free to its ADR scheme — CEDR or AviationADR — whose decision binds the airline once you accept it. You have six years from the flight in England and Wales, five in Scotland, so there is no need to accept a low offer or a voucher quickly. Claims firms take up to 30% for work you can do yourself. Airlines refuse a large share of claims by citing extraordinary circumstances, often wrongly: routine technical faults do not qualify.
Related guides
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If your flight is delayed by three hours or more, or cancelled without sufficient notice, you may be entitled to compensation of up to £520 per passenger under UK261 — the UK's retained version of EU Regulation EC261/2004. This right applies to flights departing from a UK airport, or arriving into the UK on a UK- or EU-based airline.
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