Flight delayed under 3 hours: what you are owed

Two different rights, two different thresholds

Compensation (Article 7) is the fixed sum — £220 to £520 under UK261, €250 to €600 in the EU — paid for the time you lost. That right only arises once you arrive at your final destination three hours late or more.

Care (Article 9) is something else entirely: the airline’s duty to look after you while you are stuck. That duty is not tied to three hours but to the distance of your flight, and it kicks in earlier. Airlines rarely volunteer this.

When the duty of care begins

Article 6 ties the threshold to flight distance. From that point the carrier must look after you — and this applies even when the delay is caused by something outside its control. In bad weather or an air traffic control strike your compensation disappears, but your care does not:

• From 2 hours’ delay on flights of 1,500 km or less
• From 3 hours on intra-EU flights over 1,500 km and other flights between 1,500 and 3,500 km
• From 4 hours on other flights over 3,500 km
• What you get: meals and refreshments in reasonable relation to the waiting time, plus two phone calls, emails or faxes

Stuck overnight? A hotel is part of it

If departure is now expected on the day after your original departure, the airline must also provide hotel accommodation and the transport between airport and hotel. Again, this is independent of whether any compensation is due.

If the airline arranges nothing, book something reasonable yourself and keep the receipts. You can reclaim those costs — not as compensation, but as expenses. Do not book a five-star suite; the standard is "reasonable", and courts hold you to it.

At five hours you can walk away

Once the delay reaches five hours or more you no longer have to travel at all. You are entitled to a refund of the unused part of your ticket within seven days and, if you were already part-way through a journey, a flight back to your original point of departure.

If you choose to fly anyway and land three hours or more late, you keep your right to compensation. One does not cancel out the other.

The trap almost everyone falls into: departure or arrival?

For compensation, only your arrival time at your final destination counts. Leave four hours late but make some of it up in the air and land 2 hours 50 minutes late, and there is no compensation. Leave two hours late, miss your connection because of it and arrive six hours late, and there is.

Officially "arrival" is the moment at least one aircraft door is opened — not touchdown. That difference of a few minutes has made and broken countless claims, and it is exactly what we verify.

And the halving nobody explains

If the airline offered you re-routing and you arrived relatively soon after your original time, it may halve the compensation (Article 7(2)). On a long-haul flight arriving 3 to 4 hours late, £520 therefore becomes £260 — or €600 becomes €300 in the EU.

That is why "claim up to £520" on so many claim sites is misleading: for a long-haul arrival delay of 3 to 4 hours, £260 is the correct figure. We calculate the amount up front and show you exactly which band applies to your flight.

What to sort out at the airport, right away →

Check it anyway, even for a short delay

Think your delay was "just under"? That is precisely the case worth having checked. We pull the actual arrival time from flight data rather than relying on your impression or the airline’s app. It is free, and in two minutes you will know whether it was just over after all.