Flight Delayed? You Could Be Owed Up to £520 Per Person

Everyone remembers the feeling. The departures screen flicking from "on time" to "delayed", with no explanation attached. The gate agent's breezy "unforeseen operational issues" on the tannoy. The way one hour turns into four, and nobody seems to know anything.

What very few passengers realise in that moment is that the delay has already started a legal clock. Under EU Regulation 261/2004 (which still protects UK passengers on most flights to, from and within Europe), a delay of three hours or more at your final destination can entitle you to up to £520 per person in cash compensation. That figure is fixed by law, not by the airline. And crucially, it's owed on top of any food, drink, refunds or re-booking you may also organise from the airline.

The rules are simpler than airlines make them sound

The amount you're entitled to depends on the length of your flight, not the price of your ticket:

• £220 for flights of up to 1,500 km
• £350 for flights between 1,500 km and 3,500 km
• £520 for all longer flights

These figures are per passenger. A family of four on a long-haul flight who arrive four hours late are not looking at a gesture of goodwill — they're looking at the better part of £2,000 that belongs to them. The only genuine exception is when the delay was caused by "extraordinary circumstances" beyond the airline's control, a term the law defines far more narrowly than the marketing departments would like.

What counts as an extraordinary circumstance

Extraordinary circumstances genuinely include things like severe weather that closed the airport, political unrest, or a strike by air traffic control. They do not include the everyday realities of running an airline:

• A crew member calling in sick and no standby available
• An aircraft that needed maintenance and wasn't maintained in time
• Staffing shortages caused by the airline's own scheduling
• Waiting for connecting passengers

Yet time and again, "extraordinary circumstances" is the first line of defence in a rejection letter — precisely because the airline knows many passengers will simply give up at that point.

Why most people never claim

Airlines are under no obligation to tell you when you're entitled to compensation. It's not in their interest to. For every passenger who doesn't know the delay is claimable, the airline keeps £220 or more. And the process is deliberately fiddly: forms that ask for information you don't have, replies that take six weeks, follow-ups that go unanswered.

This is where a specialist can change the outcome. We build the case file, handle every exchange with the airline, and escalate to the Civil Aviation Authority or legal routes when they stall — and we only take a fee when you actually get paid.

Worth checking: delays are calculated by when your flight actually lands, not when it takes off. Hitting the tarmac three hours late counts, even if the flight didn't take off that much later.

How far back can you claim?

In the UK you generally have up to six years to bring a claim for flight delay compensation, and the clock is more generous than most people assume. But don't treat that as a reason to put it off — the longer you wait, the harder it is to gather boarding passes, receipts and records, and the more likely the airline is to claim documentation no longer exists.

If you've had a delayed flight in the last few years, the smart move is to check whether it qualifies. It takes about two minutes, costs nothing, and if there's a claim to be made, we'll fight the airline for every penny on your behalf.