Published 15th July 2026
There are two entirely separate things you can be owed when a flight goes wrong, and confusing them is why so many people either give up on a valid claim or spend months chasing one that was never going to succeed.
Compensation is a fixed cash sum for the disruption, and the airline can escape it if the cause was outside its control. Care is food, drink and a hotel where needed, and the airline owes it regardless of the cause. Airlines are considerably better at mentioning the first when it does not apply than the second when it does.
Which flights are covered
The UK version of the old EU air passenger rights regulation covers:
- Any flight departing a UK airport, on any airline in the world.
- Any flight arriving in the UK on a UK or EU airline.
- Flights from outside the UK to an EU airport on a UK airline.
The gap that catches people: a flight from a non-EU country into the UK on an airline that is neither UK nor EU is covered by neither the UK rules nor the EU ones. Flying home from Dubai on a Gulf carrier, or from Bangkok on a Thai one, leaves you outside the scheme entirely.
A journey booked as a single unit with connections is treated as one flight, so a delay on the first leg that makes you miss the second is judged on when you finally arrived at your final destination.
How much compensation
| Flight distance | Compensation |
|---|---|
| 1,500km or less | £220 |
| 1,500km to 3,500km | £350 |
| Over 3,500km | £520 |
These are sterling amounts set in the UK regulation. They are not conversions of the EU's €250, €400 and €600, so do not work them out from an exchange rate.
The amounts are per passenger, not per booking. A family of four delayed five hours on the way back from Greece is owed £1,400 between them, which is a materially different number from £350.
Compensation can be halved where the airline re-routes you and you arrive within two, three or four hours of your original arrival time, depending on distance. On the longest flights the Civil Aviation Authority applies this as £260 for arriving three to four hours late and the full £520 beyond that.
The three-hour rule
Compensation for a delay becomes payable once you arrive at your final destination three or more hours late. That threshold came from a European court ruling for years, and since December 2023 it has been written into the UK regulation itself, so it is now statutory rather than case law.
"Arrival" has a precise definition too: the moment passengers are permitted to leave the aircraft. Not touchdown, and not when the seatbelt sign goes off.
The right to care applies whatever the cause
This is the part worth knowing at the airport, because it applies even when compensation does not.
Once your delay passes two hours on short flights, three on medium and four on long ones, the airline must provide food and drink appropriate to the wait, two phone calls or emails, and hotel accommodation with transfers if you are kept overnight. Volcanic ash, air traffic control failure, a snowstorm: none of it removes this duty.
If the delay reaches five hours you can abandon the journey altogether and get a refund of the unused portion within seven days.
In practice, airlines under pressure sometimes stop handing out vouchers. Buy what is reasonable, keep every receipt, and claim it back. Reasonable means a meal and a drink, not a bottle of champagne in the lounge.
Extraordinary Circumstances
The airline does not have to pay compensation where the disruption was caused by extraordinary circumstances it could not have avoided. Since December 2023 that phrase has a statutory definition, which is an improvement on the years when it did not.
Usually qualifies: severe weather, strikes by people who do not work for the airline such as air traffic control or airport staff, terrorism and security risks, political unrest, and hidden manufacturing defects.
Usually does not: the airline's own staff going on strike, ordinary technical faults, component failure and wear and tear. The courts have been consistent on this over many years, and a technical problem is the airline's own risk unless it is genuinely exceptional. The Supreme Court has also held that a captain falling ill while off duty is not an extraordinary circumstance.
A recent illustration of the split: after the UK air traffic control outage on 8 September 2026, the CAA said the resulting disruption was likely to count as extraordinary circumstances, including the knock-on effects, so compensation would not be due. At the same time it reminded airlines of their duty to look after passengers. Same event, two different answers.
Cancellations
If the airline tells you 14 days or more before departure, no compensation is due. Inside 14 days it depends on how much notice you had and how closely the replacement flight matches the original timings.
Separately from compensation, on any cancellation you can choose between a refund and re-routing to your destination at the earliest opportunity. The choice is yours, not the airline's, and being offered only a voucher is not the same as being offered a refund.
The burden of proof sits with the airline. It has to show it gave you the required notice, not the other way round.
How to Claim
- Gather the evidence at the time. Boarding passes, booking reference, screenshots of the departure board, the time you actually got off the aircraft, and photographs of any notice the airline gave.
- Claim from the airline first, in writing, through its own complaints process. State the flight, the delay, the distance band and the amount you are claiming.
- Escalate after eight weeks, or sooner if you get a final response you disagree with.
- Go to the airline's dispute scheme. Most UK airlines belong to AviationADR or CEDR. It is free to you, and you generally have 12 months from the airline's final response.
- If the airline is in no scheme, the CAA's own Passenger Advice and Complaints Team can look at it, though it cannot impose a decision.
Do not hand a valid claim to a claims management company. They take a percentage of money you can recover yourself for free, and the CAA warns that some airlines will not deal with a complaint at all if it comes through a claims firm or a third-party service.
How long you have
Longer than most people assume. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland you have six years to bring a court claim. In Scotland it is five. That means a delayed flight from several summers ago may still be worth writing about, if you can still lay hands on the booking reference.
What this does not cover
Two boundaries worth being clear about.
Package holiday rights are separate. If your flight was part of a package, you have rights against the organiser under the package travel rules as well, including a refund within 14 days where the package is cancelled. Those run alongside the flight compensation rules rather than replacing them.
ATOL does not cover delays. ATOL protects you if the company you booked with fails financially. It does not cover flight delays, cancellations, missed flights, illness or lost luggage, and expecting it to is a common disappointment.
Build a realistic contingency into the trip either way. Our holiday budget planner is the place to put the buffer that covers an unplanned airport meal or an extra night, and any compensation that does come through afterwards is a rebate rather than a rescue.