How Much Is Flight Delay Compensation Worth?

Flight delay compensation in the UK is £220, £350 or £520 per passenger, fixed by law and set only by how far you were flying. That much is easy to look up. The parts nobody publishes are what a claim company actually deducts from it, and why two people delayed on the same route to the same beach can be owed £130 apart. Both are below, with the fees read off each company's own published price list.

The short answer

If your flight arrives three or more hours late and the cause was within the airline's control, you are owed a fixed cash sum per passenger. Not a voucher, not air miles, and not a proportion of what you paid. Someone on a £29 Ryanair seat and someone in business class on the same aircraft are owed the same amount.

The amount is £220 for flights of 1,500 km or less, £350 from 1,500 km to 3,500 km, and £520 above 3,500 km. Every passenger on the booking is owed separately, so a family of four on a delayed flight home from Malaga is owed £1,400 between them.

Then the deductions start. Hand the claim to AirHelp and their published service fee is 35% including VAT, so a £520 claim nets you £338. Hand it to Flightright at the top of their published range and you net £332.80. Do it yourself, directly with the airline, and you keep £520. The paperwork is a web form and about twenty minutes.

The three amounts, and what sets them

The rules are UK261, the domestic replacement for the EU's EC261 that carried over after Brexit. The distance is measured great-circle, airport to airport, not by the route the aircraft flew.

Three details that decide real claims. The clock runs on arrival, not departure, and specifically on when the doors open, so a flight that leaves two hours late and makes up an hour in the air owes nothing. Only long-haul can be halved, and only between three and four hours late: the £220 and £350 bands are never reduced. And the currency follows the country you departed from, not the airline, so a British Airways flight leaving Rome pays €400 rather than £350.

You can also claim years back: six years in England and Wales, five in Scotland. A delayed flight from the early 2020s is still live if you kept the booking reference, and a free checker will tell you in a few seconds whether an old flight still qualifies.

What you actually receive after a claim company

This is the figure the adverts leave out. Claim companies work on no win, no fee, which is genuinely useful when an airline has already refused you, but the fee comes out of a fixed statutory sum rather than a negotiated one. Both sets of figures below were read from each company's own published price page on 18 August 2026.

Sources, read from each company's own published price page on 18 August 2026. AirHelp's price list states a service fee of "35% of the total Flight Compensation, including applicable VAT", plus a legal action fee of a further 15% in what it describes as statistically 3% of cases. Flightright states a commission of "usually 20-30% (plus 14% solicitor's surcharge, if applicable) plus VAT". The Flightright range above is that 20% to 30% with VAT added; if the solicitor's surcharge applies, add 14 percentage points before VAT, which takes a £520 claim down to roughly £245.

The honest summary is that a claim company costs you between about a third and a half of the money, and is worth it in exactly one situation: the airline has already said no and you do not want the fight. If the airline has not yet been asked, asking it yourself is the better-paid twenty minutes.

Same destination, different payout

Because the bands are set by distance rather than by destination, the 1,500 km line cuts straight through the middle of the British package holiday market. Alicante is the clearest case. Six UK airports fly there, and which one you left from changes what you are owed by £130.

Eighty kilometres separate Gatwick to Alicante from Luton to Alicante. Same airline, same resort, same three-hour delay, and £130 a head between them. On a family of four that is £520. If an airline offers you £220 on a flight from Luton, check the distance before you accept it.

The same trap sits at the 3,500 km line. Heathrow to Cairo is 3,533 km, which pays £520, while Heathrow to Larnaca at 3,278 km pays £350. Distances are measured great-circle between the two airports, so a route that looks marginal usually is, and it is worth checking the exact distance for your flight before accepting whatever the airline offers.

How often this actually happens

The Civil Aviation Authority publishes punctuality data for the 25 UK airports that report it. Across the 12 months to June 2026 those airports handled 1,918,349 flights. Weighted by flight volume:

• 72.3% ran on time, meaning within 15 minutes of schedule.
• 15.4 minutes was the average delay across every flight.
• About 1.1% were cancelled, roughly 21,700 flights.
• 0.5% landed more than three hours late. That is around 10,332 flights a year, or 28 a day, every one of them carrying a cabin full of people owed £220 or more each.

The airline matters more than the airport. Among carriers flying at least 10,000 UK flights in the year, SAS was the most punctual at 81.9% across 12,861 flights, and TUI Airways the least at 58.6% across 61,005. Drop the volume floor and Air India is worse still: 43.6% on time across 5,855 flights, an average delay of 37.3 minutes, and 2.3% of its flights more than three hours late, more than four times the national rate.

Route matters too, and long haul is where the money is. Heathrow to Delhi ran at 59.4% on time with a 25.5 minute average delay and 1.3% of flights more than three hours late. Heathrow to Newark is worse on the measure that pays: 2.4% of its flights land more than three hours late, and each of those is a £520 claim.

The routes most likely to pay out

Taking the same CAA year and looking only at routes with at least 2,000 flights, these are the ones where the largest share of flights landed more than three hours late. The pattern is long haul and it is mostly the North Atlantic, which is also where the payment is largest.

Manchester to Palma is the one to look at twice. Fewer than half its flights ran on time, 49.6%, which is the worst punctuality of any busy UK route in the data, and 1.4% of them landed more than three hours late at £350 a head. It is a package holiday route flown by families, and it is exactly the sort of flight where nobody claims.

One caveat on the transatlantic entries. The CAA counts arrivals and departures together, so these figures cover both legs, and only one of them is protected. A flight leaving Heathrow is covered whoever operates it. A flight leaving Newark or Chicago is only covered when a UK or EU airline is flying it, so a delayed United or American service inbound to Heathrow pays nothing under UK261. The same delay on the British Airways or Virgin Atlantic service is worth £520.

When you get nothing

Compensation is only due when the cause was within the airline's control. The get-outs are real, and airlines lean on them.

• Weather, air traffic control restrictions and strikes by anyone other than the airline's own staff. These count as extraordinary circumstances and nothing is payable.
• Security alerts, bird strikes, medical emergencies. Same category.
• Under three hours. No cash, though from two hours the airline owes you food, drinks and communication, and a hotel plus transfers if you are kept overnight. That duty of care applies regardless of the cause, including in bad weather.
• Routine technical faults are usually not a defence. Courts have repeatedly held that ordinary mechanical failure is inherent in running an airline. If a refusal letter says "technical issue" and nothing more, that is worth challenging.
• Crew shortages, late inbound aircraft and overbooking are squarely the airline's problem. These are the strongest claims of all.

Claiming it yourself, for free

• Go to the airline first. Every UK carrier runs a delay claim form. You need the flight number, the date, and every passenger name on the booking.
• Quote the arrival delay in hours and minutes, and cite UK261. A specific claim gets processed. A general complaint gets a voucher.
• Claim for everyone. Each passenger is owed in full, including children in their own seat.
• Refuse the voucher. Compensation is a cash payment and you are entitled to insist. Airlines offer credit because most people accept it.
• If refused, escalate free. Most UK airlines belong to a dispute resolution scheme, usually AviationADR or CEDR, and it costs the passenger nothing. Where an airline belongs to neither, the CAA's own passenger complaints team will take it.
• Only then consider a claim company, knowing from the table above what it costs.

Common questions

Does the ticket price affect what I get?

No, and this is the single most misunderstood part of the rules. Compensation is fixed by distance and nothing else. A £29 fare and a £900 fare on the same delayed flight are owed exactly the same £220, £350 or £520. It is not a refund of what you paid, and you keep your ticket or your refund on top where one is due.

How long do I have to claim?

Six years in England and Wales, five in Scotland, running from the date of the flight. That is far longer than most passengers assume, and airlines rarely volunteer it. Old boarding passes are helpful but not essential, because the booking reference is usually enough for the airline to find the flight.

What if my flight was cancelled rather than delayed?

You are owed a refund or a re-route, and on top of that the same £220 to £520 can be payable if the airline gave you less than 14 days notice and the replacement got you there significantly later. The two are separate entitlements, so accepting a re-route does not waive the cash.

Is a claim company ever worth it?

Yes, in one situation: the airline has already rejected you and you do not want to argue or go to a dispute resolution body yourself. On those claims a company taking a third of £520 is taking a third of something you had written off. On a claim the airline has not yet seen, you are paying £182 for a web form.

Does this still apply after Brexit?

Yes. The EU regulation was carried into UK law as UK261 and the amounts were converted into pounds. Flights departing the UK on any airline are covered, and flights arriving in the UK are covered when the carrier is a UK or EU airline. Departing an EU country puts you back under EU261 and the euro figures, whoever you fly with.

For the fixed-fee side of getting qualified rather than compensated, our guide to HGV licence costs covers another set of statutory fees people budget for badly, and dropped kerb costs covers council fees that vary by hundreds of pounds for the same job. Our methodology explains how we source and check every figure we publish.