Flight delay compensation: the complete guide

How much is a delayed flight worth?

Both regulations pay a fixed sum per passenger, banded by the great circle distance from the departure airport to the final ticketed destination. The fare is irrelevant: a seat bought in a sale claims the same band as a flexible business ticket on the same aircraft. The sterling amounts were fixed by SI 2019/278 when the UK retained the regulation after Brexit; the tests and thresholds stayed identical.

Which routes fall in which band?

Distance is measured once, to the final destination on the ticket. The examples below are computed from airport coordinates by the same code that runs the free check, so they are the numbers a claim on these routes would actually be assessed against.

Where exactly is the delay measured?

At arrival, when at least one aircraft door opens at the final destination, and not at pushback or takeoff. The distinction decides borderline claims in both directions: airlines pad schedules, so a departure two and a half hours late can land inside the 3 hour line, while a moderate departure delay can grow past it after holding patterns and a remote stand.

On a single booking with connections, the measurement point is the end of the journey. In Folkerts, a Bremen to Asunción itinerary left about two and a half hours late on its first leg, the passenger missed her connection in Paris, and she arrived roughly eleven hours behind schedule. The Grand Chamber held in 2013 that the compensation followed the arrival at the final destination, in the band of the whole journey's distance, even though the feeder's own delay was below every Art. 6 threshold.

Why does compensation start at 3 hours when the regulation does not say so?

Regulation 261/2004 as written pays fixed sums for denied boarding and cancellation, and provides only care and refunds for delay. The Court of Justice closed that gap in Sturgeon in 2009: passengers who reach their final destination three hours or more late suffer the same loss of time as passengers whose flight was cancelled, so they may rely on the same Art. 7 right.

Airlines and the UK Civil Aviation Authority challenged that reading, and in 2012 the Grand Chamber rejected every ground in Nelson: the fixed sums compensate lost time, an inconvenience sitting outside the Montreal Convention's damage regime, so the two can coexist. A rejection letter treating the three hour rule as unsettled law describes the world before October 2012.

What can the airline argue back?

One defence: Art. 5(3), extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. Both halves must be proved by the airline, with evidence about your flight. The Court has spent fifteen years sorting real events into the two boxes:

When can the airline halve the payment?

Art. 7(2) allows a 50 percent reduction where you were re-routed and still arrived close to schedule: within 2 hours on flights of 1,500 km or less, 3 hours on longer intra Community flights and others up to 3,500 km, and 4 hours beyond that.

Worked example: a London Heathrow to John F. Kennedy passenger, 5,540 km in the over 3,500 km band, is cancelled and re-routed to arrive 3 hours 30 minutes late. The full band is £520; because the arrival stayed within the 4 hour window for that distance, the airline may pay £260 instead. Had the re-routing arrived 4 hours 10 minutes late, the full £520 would stand.

What are you owed while you wait?

Care, on a separate clock that runs from departure delay: meals and refreshments in a reasonable relation to the wait, two free communications, and a hotel with transfers where a night becomes necessary, under Articles 6 and 9. Care applies even where the cause was genuinely extraordinary, which is why a snowed-in passenger can hold receipts worth more than the compensation they cannot claim. The care guide covers the thresholds and the ash cloud precedent in full.

How long do you have?

The regulation sets no deadline; national limitation law does, which the Court settled in Cuadrench Moré in 2012. Across the 31 forums in our published map the periods run from 1 to 10 years: 6 years for England and Wales under the Limitation Act 1980, three years from year end in Germany under BGB 195 and 199, one year at the short end. The departure country usually fixes the forum, and the forum fixes the clock.

A decision flow for any delayed flight

• 1. Coverage: did the flight depart the UK, EU or EEA, or arrive there on a UK or EU carrier? If neither, the regulations do not apply (Art. 3(1)).
• 2. Threshold: did you reach the final ticketed destination 3 hours or more behind schedule? Under that, the claim is care and, from 5 hours, a refund option, but not the fixed sums.
• 3. Band: measure the great circle distance to the final destination and read the table above.
• 4. Cause: what reason did the airline give, in writing? Test it against the case table; the airline must prove both the circumstance and its response.
• 5. Reduction: if you were re-routed and arrived inside the Art. 7(2) window for your band, expect the airline to invoke the 50 percent reduction.
• 6. Clock: check the limitation period for the forum before doing anything slowly.

How often does a qualifying delay actually happen?

Rarely, which surprises people on both sides of the argument. The UK Civil Aviation Authority publishes monthly punctuality statistics for the UK reporting airports, and in the May 2026 file the share of flights recorded more than 3 hours late runs from zero to around one percent on most routes, airline by airline. Our data pages break this out per route and per carrier, with the CAA referenced on every page.

The rarity cuts two ways. It means a badly delayed flight is the exception, and it also means an airline's blanket claim that disruption was unavoidable that day can be checked against how the rest of its schedule actually ran.

Common misconceptions, corrected

• The ticket was cheap, so the claim is small: false. The bands ignore fare entirely.
• The airline rebooked me, so the claim is gone: false. Rerouting satisfies a different duty; compensation follows the arrival delay and the cause.
• The departure board said 2 hours 50, so no claim: incomplete. The clock that counts is arrival at the final destination, doors open.
• The airline said extraordinary circumstances, so it is over: false. The phrase is the start of the airline's burden of proof, not the end of yours.
• Compensation covers my missed hotel night too: no. Particular losses run through Art. 12 further compensation, separately evidenced.

What should you keep?

• The booking reference or confirmation email: it establishes the reservation and itinerary.
• The actual arrival time, which decides the threshold; the airline holds the flight record.
• Every written reason the airline gives, because the stated cause frames the Art. 5(3) argument.
• Receipts for meals, transport and hotel: care costs are reimbursed against evidence.