Flight Delay Compensation

If your flight has been delayed, then you have the right to claim compensation. Best Flight Delay Compensation are experts at helping people win compensation.

With Best Flight Delay Compensation, you could claim up to € 800. All of our claims are handled on a no win no fee basis and there are no hidden charges or costs.

What is Flight Delay Compensation?

People whose flights arrive three hours late or more from their original scheduled time, are entitled to compensation from between £110 to £550, according to EU rule 261/2004.

Am I eligible to claim?

To be able to submit a valid flight delay claim, a claim is required to pass certain eligibility.
The flight must depart from an Airport located inside the European Union.
The Airline must be a EU airline. (They must have their headquarters located in a EU member nation)

A History Of Flight Delay Compensation

In October 2012, the European Court Of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg, delivered a groundbreaking judgement, when it ruled that EU airlines were duty bound to compensate passengers for flight delays of three hours or more.

Prior to this, the ECJ ruled in 2004 that airlines were required to pay compensation for passengers involved in particular cancellations and delays.

Compensation was paid out in the form of, refreshments, meals, hotel rooms, airport transfers and free telephone calls.

In 2009, the ECJ stated that that passengers whose flights had been delayed, would be treated as if their flights had been cancelled – only if their flight was delayed for a period of over three hours or more.

However, this ruling was not met kindly by a consortium of airlines, consisting of BA, Easyjet, TUI Travel and the International Air Transport Association who launched a high court challenge in London to protest the law change. The case was then referred to the European Court Of Justice in August 2010.

Airlines involved in flight delays

• British Airways (BA)
• Ryanair
• Jet 2
• Thomson Airlines
• Thomas Cook
• Easyjet
• Wizz Air
• Flybe
• Germanwings
• Brussels Airlines
• Iberia
• Emirates Airlines
• Qatar Airlines
• Etihad Airlines
• Gulf Air
• Air France
• KLM
• Norwegian Air
• Virgin Atlantic
• Air India
• PIA (Pakistan International Airlines)
• Vueling Airlines
• Monarch
• United Airlines
• Delta Airlines
• American Airlines
• Jetblue
• Air Asia
• Air Canada
• Qantas
• Thai Airways
• Oman Air
• Lufthansa
• Alitalia
• Air China
• TAP Air Portugal
• Aer Lingus
• Norwegian Airlines
• Swiss International Airlines
• Cathay Pacific
• SAS (Scandinavian Airlines)
• Turkish Airlines
• Malaysia Airlines
• Aeroflot

Flight Delay Facts

Flight delay compensation is something that we tend to hear quite a bit about in the news when there has been some sort of disaster, such as extreme weather, which has caused a lot of flights to be delayed. We see pictures on the news of people sleeping in airports being delayed for days and there is some discussion about compensation. However, many people do not know exactly what their rights are with regards to flight delays and that they do not have to be delayed for significantly long periods of time in order to be able to make a claim.

There are EU rules which apply to flight delays and it is worth finding out more about them to see whether you are entitled to any sort of compensation. Martin Lewis, Money Saving Expert, explains it all clearly on his website so that customers not only know how much they can claim but how they can do this. Your flight has to be delayed for more than three hours or cancelled for you to entitled to compensation under the EU rule 261/2004 and it is possible to get between £110 and £530 so not an insignificant amount.

It is not always that easy to get compensation though. Some airlines are not that good at paying it out particularly if the claims date back a number of years or if there were technical faults that caused the problems. However, more recently courts have ruled that they still have to pay out. It is necessary though, to send a claim through which is correctly worded to be able to make a claim.

It is worth noting that compensation claims only apply to EU regulated flights. This means that the flight has to either have departed from an EU airport or be with an EU airline which landed at an EU airport. Once the UK leaves the EU things could change, but at the moment they are still in the EU so it applies to UK flights as well. This means that the compensation would work for all the popular UK airlines such as British Airways, EasyJet, RyanAir, Thomson, Thomas Cook and Wizz Air as well as all of the EU companies as well. Although non-EU flights may still have some ways to claim compensation as well. You can go back about six years to make claims, but it is wise to make them as soon as possible.

You will only be able to make a claim if the fault was with the airline. Therefore if there is not enough staff or they have overbooked the plane so there is not enough seats for all of the passengers then it would be considered to be their fault and you could make a claim.

However, if it is due to political unrest in a country or striking by staff then you cannot make a claim. The delay also needs to be more than three hours to qualify for a claim. Anything less than this will mean that there is no point in trying to claim compensation. It is worth noting that this applies only to arriving late not leaving. For example if the flight leaves four hours late but manages to make up time and arrives less than three hours late then you will not be able to claim compensation. However, arrival is not when the plane lands but once a door is opened on it.

It is worth knowing that the amount you can claim will not be the full ticket price in every case. It will very much depend on how late the flight is and how much distance has been travelled. However, compensation is per person, so a family will get more than an individual, although there is no compensation for a child that travels free.

Sometimes, even if the airline refuses to give you compensation you will still be entitled to it. You can go to the ombudsman or a regulator to check whether you have a case and see whether you should get compensation. The case will then need to be escalated and who you need to contact will depend on who you flew with and where to and from. It will not always cost you anything to take your claim further but there are now charges form four airlines if your claim is unsuccessful. These are Thompson, Thomas Cook, Easyjet and British Airways and they will charge £25.

There are slightly different rules for flights which have been cancelled compared to delayed. If a flight is cancelled you are entitled to a refund for that flight or an alternative no matter what the reason was for the cancellation. This applies to all departures from EU airports regardless or airline or if you are flying on an EU airlines and landing at an EU airport. Other flights may allow compensation but the rules could be very different. It is also possible to claim additional compensation but this will depend on the specific circumstances.

Airlines book more passengers than there are seats on flights as they assume some people will not show up. This means that they could ask for volunteers to leave the flight and may offer some compensation, which is just an agreement between you and the airline. If there are not enough people volunteering then they can choose selected people to leave and they may choose those that booked the cheapest tickets or checked in last and will be very unlikely to pick those with elite status or in expensive seats. If you are forced off you get the same compensation as you would under a cancelled flight, but you could try and negotiate something better with the airline at the time.