Flight Delay Compensation

It's the operator of the flight which is responsible when things go wrong. So if, for example, you book with American Airlines but your flight is operated by British Airways, it's British Airways which is responsible for any problems. If the operator counts as an EU airline, then you can claim.

Where things may get tricky is connecting flights that are operated by different airlines. For example if you fly from New York to Newcastle via London, and the New York-London leg is American Airlines but the London-Newcastle leg is British Airways, it can be a bit of a grey area. The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) says there are two factors:

• Whether the court would consider this as one flight or two separate ones.
• Whether the cause of the delay occurred in the US or the UK.

The CAA says if it's deemed you travelled on two separate flights and the delay to the British Airways flight was caused by an issue in the UK, then you may have a case. However, it's a complex issue that ultimately a court would need to consider.

It makes no difference, the rules are exactly the same.

If they say that, it's utter tosh. It always was tosh but Thomson (now rebranded as Tui) had been trying to overturn various court rulings confirming that you can go back at least six years. Thomson argued you should only be able to go back two, and it led the way among airlines in automatically rejecting cases more than two years old.

However the UK's highest court, the Supreme Court, refused Thomson's application to appeal an earlier judgment against it in October 2014, meaning the six-year rule stands in English and Welsh courts (others may also use the same principle). If any airline tries to fob you off with this rubbish, they are talking nonsense and you should fight 'em. See the court cases section for full details.

You can actually go back more than six years – to 2005 – under European law. But if it went to court, those in England, Northern Ireland and Wales would only look at cases going back six years, while it's five in Scotland. So this makes winning claims between 2005 and 2011 (2012 in Scotland) extremely unlikely.

Unfortunately this would be a very hard battle to win, as you can only go back six years for court cases in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, and five for Scotland.

If you want to try though, you can complain to your airline in the first instance. If your case is rejected, complain to the relevant regulator or to the European Consumer Centre where relevant. See the How do I claim? section for more information.

Unfortunately, if your case is rejected by both the airline and the regulator/ECC, then there's nothing more you can do.

While you can claim back to February 2005, when EU rules came into force, it may be difficult to enforce. It's likely every country also has its own version of a statute of limitations restricting how far back claims can be made.

On 23 October 2012, the Court of Justice of the European Union passed a judgment which said consumers who arrived at their destination three or more hours late could claim compensation. This upheld a long-standing rule which airlines had challenged.

Since 2012 we've seen many reports of courts upholding the rules. Take MoneySaver Jeremy Noott, for example. He received £1,000+ in September 2013 after York County Court ruled in his favour following a 21 hour delay on a Thomson flight in 2010. See the Thomson defeated in court MSE News story for how he did it.

For delays, the Civil Aviation Authority says passengers will need to prove they were at the check-in. The best way to do this is to either submit:

• Your boarding pass.

• Email confirmation of boarding passes being issued and other forms of acknowledgement if you don't still have your boarding pass.

• If you've lost your boarding pass or other form of acknowledgement, ask the airline if it has confirmation you checked in. We've heard of success when trying this.

In this instance, you may be a creditor of the company. If this is the case, you'll need to make a claim to the liquidator or administrator.

However, if you paid for a flight using a credit card, you may also be able to pursue compensation with your card company, providing the flight cost £100 or more. For more information, see our Section 75 refunds guide.

It's likely the business that bought the airline has taken over all liabilities, meaning you can put in a claim to the new owner.

If the buyer doesn't take over liabilities, but you paid for a flight using a credit card, you may be able to claim for compensation with your credit card company instead, providing the flight cost £100 or over. For more information, see our Section 75 refunds guide. If you're unsure about what's happened, ask the Civil Aviation Authority.

Where the delay is out of the airline's hands, then 'extraordinary circumstances' include:

• Bad weather (though it's worth noting flight delay solicitors Bott & Co argue some bad weather may NOT be an extraordinary circumstance, eg, heavy snow at an airport near a ski resort is to be expected).

• Industrial action by air traffic controllers, airport staff and ground handlers

• Political problems

• Security or safety issues

• Air traffic management decisions, eg, airspace shut due to volcanic ash

• Technical problems caused by an event that is "out of the ordinary" eg, a hidden manufacturing defect

Examples of where the delay is usually within the airline's control, and therefore not an 'extraordinary circumstance', include:

• Crew or pilot late

• Flight cancelled because of underbooking

• Strikes by airline staff (see our 'Wildcat' strikes MSE News story for more info)

• If the airline doesn't submit its documentation on time, if the delay was its fault

• Technical problems that are caused by something routine, such as component failure and general wear and tear

Let's face it, most of us wouldn't have a clue how to tell for sure if a problem was due to a technical fault. We wouldn't be allowed to inspect the aircraft, and even if we could, we probably wouldn't have the necessary aviation knowledge.

If you don't believe an airline when it says the delay wasn't its fault, you can refer the complaint to the airline's named Alternative Dispute Resolution scheme, the UK's regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), another European regulator or the European Consumer Centre. Any of these can liaise with the airline on your behalf to establish what caused the delay.

However even then the CAA says it doesn't separately collect reasons for a flight delay and it will rely on airlines to explain what caused a delay.

Depending on your travel insurance policy, you could be able to claim compensation from your insurer when the delay isn't the airline's fault. Check your policy terms and conditions for what situations it'll cover.

Here are some examples of what major insurers provide. Whether you'll get compensation will depend on the cause of the delay:

• Aviva and LV's Premier Policy will give you £25 for each 12-hour period you're delayed, up to a maximum of £250.

• Churchill and Direct Line will give you up to £200 if you're delayed by more than 12 hours.

You may also get cash to cover hotel costs or alternative transport to get you somewhere, though airlines should, by law, provide this if your flight is delayed by more than two hours.

The Association of British Insurers says:

Most travel insurance policies will give you some cover if your flight's delayed, but this can be quite limited. Usually delay cover will only kick in if the delay was caused by adverse weather, strikes or mechanical aircraft failure.

This cover will also typically only kick in after a certain amount of time, so if the delay's over eight hours, for example. But this won't be the case for every policy, so you should check the terms of your travel insurance to see what's included.

There have been multiple court cases on this. The most recent was van de lans v KLM, which went in consumers' favour – in September 2015 the European Court of Justice clarified you CAN claim for technical faults. As it's the highest court in Europe, all others should follow its decision.

This ruling followed a previous judgment in June 2014 made by the UK's highest court, the Supreme Court – it also said passengers are able to claim for technical problems. See the court cases section for full information.

Yes, you can claim, depending on the arrival time of the rescheduled flight you're put on, and as long as you meet certain other criteria. See the cancellations section for the full details of when you can claim.

It's likely you could claim if the pilot or crew were late, as this could be seen as the airline's fault for not properly planning turnaround times between flights, or for not providing additional cover. However, claims are investigated on a case-by-case basis, and will depend on why exactly the crew or pilot were late.

To be honest, we're not 100% sure whether you can claim for compensation as the law isn't specific enough to cover this scenario.

The Civil Aviation Authority says these type of decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis.

A case heard at Macclesfield County Court in September 2013 may strengthen your right to claim in this scenario. A judge ruled in favour of a passenger whose Easyjet flight from Gatwick was delayed after the aircraft was held up following bad weather on an earlier flight. The judge said the airline couldn't demonstrate it had done everything it its power to prevent the delay.

While the case outlined above isn't binding as it was heard at a county court, it's still worth making a claim and citing it as an example. Why should you be penalised if the airline chose a tight turnaround time, meaning more chance of it suffering delays? If nothing else, it will help set a precedent.

What matters is if you arrived at your final destination more than three hours late. Depending on the cause of the diversion, you may be able to claim for compensation.

An example is if you were supposed to fly direct from London to New York, but ended up being diverted via Washington, which meant you suffered a delay. In this example, you would normally be taken by an alternative flight, coach, taxi or train, provided by the airline, to New York – so what counts for your claim is the overall time it took to get to New York.

The European Commission's most recent guidelines on diverted flights (see 3.2.4. on page 24) say that in this situation the claim would be treated as a delay.

If the initial disruption causes you to arrive at your final destination over three hours late, then depending on what caused the disruption, you can claim compensation. What matters is when you arrive at the final destination on your ticket. So if you book a London to Las Vegas flight via New York, where both legs are on the same ticket, what counts is when you get to Las Vegas.

But if you book your connecting flight separately from your original flight, meaning it's on another ticket, then you can only claim based on the delay to each individual flight. So using the same example, if you book London to New York separately from New York to Las Vegas, and the London to New York journey is delayed by less than three hours, causing you to miss the Las Vegas flight, then you can't claim compensation.

If you don't remember exactly how long your flight was delayed for, it's a little trickier. The FlightStats website previously offered a free tool to help you check, but it now charges.

Free historical flight data is hard to come by, and so one alternative is to use a claim firm's delay calculator. But to be clear we're NOT suggesting you use a claims firm, just that you use its calculator and then submit your own DIY claim. Here are two options:

• The FlightRight calculator is easy to use – just tap in your flight number, date of flight and the airports you flew between, and it'll say how long you were delayed for.

• The Bott & Co calculator is similar, and later in this guide Bott & Co's the firm we suggest you consider if court is the only option left. Yet there are two drawbacks.
  
  First, the tool doesn't tell you the length of delay, just how much it thinks you can claim (if it says you're owed €600 and your flight was over 3,500km, your delay was likely over four hours). And secondly, you have to give your name and email address (phone number is optional) so you may get some marketing emails.

When we tested the calculators with a few known delays, they seemed to give generally accurate results, but we don't have much feedback, so just use answers as a rough guide. Let us know how you find them, and if you've come across others which provide reliable free historical flight data, in the Flight Delays forum thread.

We've heard plenty of reports of airlines giving flight vouchers instead of cash. In particular, Thomas Cook often crops up as doing this. Yet you don't have to accept these – you're entitled to your compensation in cash (likely to be paid by cheque).

Sarah is a great example of this. She tweeted us: "Thomas Cook offered vouchers, so I asked for the money – no problem, the money's in my account."

Depending on the length of the flight, you're entitled to costs on delays of more than two or more than four hours. This means you need to be provided with food, drinks, communications and accommodation if you are delayed overnight.

You are entitled to this help in all circumstances, regardless of the delay's cause. The Court of Justice of the European Union upheld consumers' rights to care and assistance in 2013 after Ryanair challenged it (see the Ryanair ordered to pay costs MSE News story).

The airline should sort this for you, such as giving vouchers for food and drinks etc on the spot. If however, you have to pay for these costs yourself, keep the receipts and claim them back later from the airline. See the how to claim section for how to do this.

Passengers can claim compensation of between €250 (£220) and €600 (£540) if their flight was delayed by more than three hours and they meet the wider criteria for compensation (eg, travelling on an EU flight, delay has to be the airline's fault and so on). The amount depends on the length of the flight and the delay. See the How much will you get? table above.

When the delay hits five hours, you qualify for a refund of the ticket cost, no matter whose fault the problem was, if you decide not to travel.

You can get a refund for a delayed flight if:

• The flight departed from an EU airport, regardless of the airline, or you were on an EU airline that landed at an EU airport.

• Your flight departure is delayed by five hours or more and you decide not to travel.

• You will also receive a refund for any unused parts of your booking (for instance, the return flight), and a flight back to your departure airport if you've already completed part of your journey.

Can I get both a refund and compensation?

It looks pretty unlikely.

The law around the amount of compensation and delays is based on the time you arrive at your destination, therefore if you opt for a refund instead you technically haven't arrived and so it can be argued you're not entitled to compensation as well.

That said, there have been court cases on this, so far unsuccessful, which suggests there are arguments for you to be owed some kind of compensation. Until there is a definite precedent set you could always ask the airline to pay the equivalent compensation as a goodwill gesture, if you feel you were suitably inconvenienced.

Whichever route you're using to claim, it'll help if you can attach the details of the flight you're claiming for and any documents you may have, including boarding passes, tickets and any proof of the delay. (If claiming via our online complaint tool, Resolver, you'll be able to attach these to your online claim).

Don't worry if you don't have any documented evidence – we've still heard of people claiming successfully without it – eg, Nadine emailed us saying: "Only had an old itinerary for a flight that I went on four years ago and used your template. Received a payment of £2,100. Thanks."

Try to include the following, if you can:

• Passenger details including names, your home address, email address and phone number.
• Previous airline reference number if you been in contact before about the same complaint.
• Flight details such as the booking reference, flight number, where you were travelling to and from and on what dates.
• The flight length. You can check this on the Web Flyer website.
• You should also include copies of supporting documents such as receipts, flight tickets or boarding passes. If you can't find these immediately, check your email inbox for e-tickets.

If you weren't on an EU flight, as described above, sadly you won't be covered by the EU flight delay compensation scheme.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) says most airlines base their terms and conditions on those recommended by the International Air Transport Association. This means that when delays happen, most airlines have a contractual obligation to offer passengers a choice between a later flight, mutually agreed alternative transportation or a refund.

But to try and get compensation as well, there are still a few avenues you can try – see What if I wasn't on an EU flight? below.

Sometimes it can be unclear whether you meet the conditions to get compensation. For example, the airline may not have told you the reason for the delay, in which case it can be difficult to know.

Having said that, it's possible that if the airline didn't tell you, it's because it knows you're eligible to claim and it doesn't want you to. If you're unsure, we'd suggest you submit a complaint anyway. Follow our how to claim information below.

Even if you don't meet the rules for claiming compensation, there's nothing to stop you from claiming a goodwill gesture or payment for poor customer service.

For example, let's say you were delayed 50 hours due to bad fog. The fog isn't the airline's fault so you can't claim under EU regulations, but if you were treated abominably during that time in a way that you don't believe is acceptable, then just like anyone else who has a bad experience with a company, you can complain.

If this is what's happened to you, there's no point writing your letter following the templates below because they won't apply. You simply need to write a normal letter explaining what went wrong, saying you don't think it was good enough, and stating what you expect in terms of a goodwill gesture.