Guide · 6 min read
Brexit didn't delete your passenger rights. It made a copy of them. The harder question isn't what UK261 pays — it's which of the two regulations your particular flight falls under, and that turns on two facts.
Free verdict, with the retained article it comes from. No sign-up.
UK261 pays £220, £350 or £520 per passenger, from three hours late.
UK261 is Regulation (EC) 261/2004 as retained in United Kingdom law after Brexit. The three distance bands survive intact and pay in sterling: £220 up to 1,500 km, £350 between 1,500 and 3,500 km, £520 beyond that — per passenger, from three hours late at the final destination. The Civil Aviation Authority enforces it.
| Distance flown | Sterling, per head |
|---|---|
| Up to 1,500 km | £220 |
| 1,500–3,500 km | £350 |
| Over 3,500 km | £520 |
Sterling amounts are fixed in the retained text. They don't track the euro, so the gap between £220 and €250 widens or narrows with the exchange rate and neither side adjusts.
This is the part people guess at, usually by looking at the airline's tail. Wrong instinct. The first question is where the aircraft took off from.
Anything left over goes to the ordinary test: departing an EU or EEA airport puts you under EU261 whoever operates the flight, and arriving in the EU only counts on an EU-licensed carrier. Four ordinary itineraries make the shape clear.
| Route | Operated by | Applies | 3 h late pays |
|---|---|---|---|
| London → Madrid | Any airline | UK261 — origin is GB | £220 |
| Madrid → London | British Airways (GB) | UK261 — GB arrival, GB carrier | £220 |
| Madrid → London | Iberia (ES) | EU261 — departs an EU airport | €250 |
| London → New York | Any airline | UK261 — origin is GB | £520 |
Rows two and three are the same airport pair on the same day. The airline's licence is the only thing moving the claim between currencies, and the amounts sit close enough that it rarely changes what you'd do next. The EU261 bands and exclusions run in parallel throughout.
The triggers didn't change at the border. A delay of three or more hours measured on arrival at your final destination, a cancellation announced less than 14 days ahead, denied boarding on an oversold flight, and a connection missed on a single booking. Departure delay is not the measure. Landing time is.
Which airlines hold a GB licence decides test two. Our directory carries two of them.
BA · replies in ~4 weeks
Answers relatively promptly, then often offers vouchers. You're entitled to cash, so say so in writing and repeat the amount. Technical-fault rejections are common from BA and are rebuttable under C-549/07 (Wallentin-Hermann).
U2 · replies in ~4 weeks
Pays reliably once a claim is properly cited — get the band and the article right and it usually settles without a fight. Weather rejections are frequent from easyJet and are often accurate. Pull the METAR for the airport before you argue.
On any departure from a UK airport the duty of care runs whether or not compensation does: food and drink scaled to how long you're stuck, two calls or emails, and — past eight hours, or on any cancellation — a bed and the taxi to it. A weather rejection kills the £220 and leaves the hotel bill standing. What to claim when you're stranded overnight covers the receipts to keep.
One quirk carries over from the European text. The middle band swallows every intra-EU flight over 1,500 km however long it is — and because Great Britain sits outside the EU now, that carve-out almost never bites a UK-origin route.
| Distance | Example from a GB airport | Per passenger |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 1,500 km | London–Madrid | £220 |
| 1,500–3,500 km | London–Athens | £350 |
| Over 3,500 km | London–New York, London–Dubai | £520 |
Distance is great-circle, first departure to final destination, and it is the only input. A £29 seat and a £2,900 seat on the same aircraft are owed the identical amount.
Retained Art. 7(2) lets the airline pay 50% if it re-routed you and you still landed within two hours of schedule under 1,500 km, three hours in the middle band, or four hours over 3,500 km. It bites on cancellations, denied boarding and missed connections. Not on a straightforward delay. If a halved offer arrives on a plain delay claim, that's the sentence to quote back.
Compensation is per passenger. A family of four at £520 is £2,080 recovered from one letter, which is where a percentage-based service gets expensive — see the $19 flat fee against a 35% commission.
The exclusions came across intact, so a UK claim dies for the same reasons a European one does. Three of them are worth stating before you write anything.
Here is where Great Britain is unusually kind. The limitation period is six years from the flight date, matched only by Ireland. The Netherlands and Italy give two. Belgium and Poland give one. So a 2021 Heathrow delay may still be claimable while the same disruption out of Amsterdam expired years ago.
| Where the claim is heard | Years to file |
|---|---|
| Great Britain, Ireland | 6 |
| France, Spain | 5 |
| Germany, Austria, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Norway | 3 |
| Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Switzerland | 2 |
| Belgium, Poland | 1 |
The period is set by the country whose courts would hear the claim, not by where the flight was going. Anything not listed defaults to two years.
Write to the airline before you write to anyone else. The regulator will ask whether you did.
Flight number, date, arrival delay, distance band, and Regulation (EC) 261/2004 as retained in UK law, Art. 7. Ask for a bank transfer in sterling and give an account. Vague complaints get vague answers.
The Civil Aviation Authority's Passenger Advice and Complaints Team wants the airline to have had eight weeks before it takes a case. British Airways and easyJet usually reply inside four, so most of that window is spent following up rather than waiting.
Escalation costs nothing. Send the CAA the original letter, the airline's reply and the dates. The existence of a regulator on the thread is most of what moves a stalled claim.
If PACT can't resolve it, the county court small claims track remains open for the rest of the six years. The step by step claim sequence sets out the dates and the order.
£220 for a great-circle distance up to 1,500 km, £350 from 1,500 to 3,500 km, and £520 above 3,500 km, for every passenger on the booking. The amounts are fixed in the retained regulation and don't move with the exchange rate.
UK261 if it left a Great Britain airport, whoever operated it. Also UK261 if it landed in Great Britain on a GB-licensed airline such as British Airways or easyJet. Landing in Great Britain on Iberia or Lufthansa falls under EU261 instead, because the flight departed an EU airport.
Only on a GB-licensed carrier. British Airways from New York to Heathrow is UK261. American Airlines flying the same route is not, because neither test is met — the flight didn't leave Great Britain and the operator isn't GB-licensed.
Give the airline eight weeks first — the Passenger Advice and Complaints Team expects that before it opens a case. Then send PACT your original cited letter, whatever the airline replied, and the dates of both. It's free, and an unanswered claim often moves once the regulator is copied in.
Six years from the flight date in Great Britain, which is the longest window of any country we cover, and Ireland matches it. A flight that left the Netherlands or Italy gives you two years instead. Belgium and Poland allow one.
No. Retained Art. 7 compensation is cash, and you can decline the voucher and restate the amount in writing. BA opening with travel credit is common enough that it's worth expecting rather than reading as a rejection.
Often, yes. Weather sits inside the Art. 5(3) exemption, and easyJet's weather rejections are frequently accurate. Pull the METAR for that airport and hour before challenging it. If the real cause was a technical fault, that's a different argument and a winnable one.
No — one regulation governs one flight, and the two tests decide which. There's no double payment and no choosing the higher amount. On a return trip the outbound and inbound legs can land under different regimes, so check each one on its own.
Give us the route, the date and how late you landed. The check picks the regulation, the band and the amount, and names the article behind it.
FlightOwe is an information service, not a law firm and not your legal representative. We tell you what the rules say and give you the letters — you file your own claim and keep everything you recover.
