How much compensation for a delayed British Airways flight?
£220 to £520 each, if you land 3 hours or more late
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British Airways is about average for the 80 airlines flying at UK airports for 3-hour delays.
- Flights a year
- 309,084
- Landed on time
- 76.4%
- Land 3 hrs or more late
- 1,236a year
Last 12 months, CAA data
What you're owed
The exact figure depends on how far you were flying, and the checker works it out from your route. About 1,236 British Airways flights a year cross that line.
What it pays
Pick the airport you flew from
British Airways flies from 10 UK airports, so there is no single distance and no single figure. Open the one you flew from and every destination is priced.
Busiest 8 shown. British Airways flies from 2 more UK airports, all listed further down this page.
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Flying soon? We'll watch your flight
If it lands 3 hours or more late we email you what you're owed.
How bad is it
Does British Airways get delayed a lot?
Not especially. It's about average for the 80 airlines flying at UK airports, with about 1 flight in 250 landing 3 or more hours late (0.4%).
That works out at about 1,236 flights a year crossing the 3-hour line, which is the point the airline has to pay.
When is it worst?
July 2025, when British Airways flights ran an average of 20.7 minutes late.
See all the numbers for British Airways
In the last 12 months, British Airways operated 309,084 flights at UK airports, and 0.4% were 3 or more hours late, the threshold where £220 to £520 each becomes payable.
Flights are landing on time more often than last year: 76.4% ran on time against 71.2% in the twelve months before, and the average delay fell from 15.8 to 13.1 minutes.
| British Airways, last 12 months | Figure | vs year before |
|---|---|---|
| Flights at UK airports | 309,084 | was 310,725 |
| Ran on time (within 15 min) | 76.4% | ▲ was 71.2% |
| Average delay | 13.1 min | ▼ was 15.8 min |
| 3 hours or more late (the line where they pay) | 0.4% | - |
| Cancelled | 1.2% | - |
| Flights 3 hours or more late (a year) | 1,236 flights/year | - |
The CAA's figures combine arrivals and departures, so this covers both directions of travel.
British Airways' delays, month by month
Worst month: July 2025, averaging 20.7 minutes.
Where it flies
British Airways at each UK airport
| Airport | Flights | Avg delay | 3 hours or more late | Landed on time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heathrow | 238,132 | 12.5 min | 0.4% | 77.2% |
| Gatwick | 34,117 | 19.5 min | 0.9% | 68.4% |
| Glasgow | 7,752 | 8.7 min | 0.1% | 81.9% |
| Edinburgh | 7,406 | 11.5 min | 0.2% | 76.3% |
| Manchester | 5,117 | 14.5 min | 0.1% | 69.7% |
| Aberdeen | 4,557 | 10.1 min | 0.5% | 81.5% |
| Belfast City (George Best) | 4,477 | 9.3 min | 0.1% | 81.4% |
| Newcastle | 3,648 | 9.8 min | 0.2% | 80.5% |
| Jersey | 3,485 | 10.8 min | 0.5% | 79.9% |
| Stansted | 378 | 33.6 min | 1.7% | 45.4% |
From our own tracking
Recent British Airways flights we logged running late
Every British Airways arrival we logged running 3 or more hours late, or cancelled, at the airports we sweep since August. Newest first, and only flights UK or EU rules cover. A cancelled row carries no figure because what it pays turns on the notice you were given. Amounts are per person on the booking (half on the longest flights that landed 3 to 4 hours late). Airlines can still dispute a claim by proving the cause was outside their control, so check yours for the real answer.
British Airways
Rome → London Heathrow Airport
8 Oct · 19:25 → 22:38
British Airways
Tokyo → London Heathrow Airport
8 Oct · 15:45
British Airways
Dublin → London Heathrow Airport
8 Oct · 17:00
British Airways
Barcelona → London Heathrow Airport
8 Oct · 18:10
British Airways
Barcelona → London Gatwick Airport
7 Oct · 01:30
British Airways
Aberdeen → London Heathrow Airport
7 Oct · 12:05
British Airways
London → John F. Kennedy International Airport
7 Oct · 15:20
British Airways
Boston → London Heathrow Airport
7 Oct · 18:40
British Airways
Faro → London Heathrow Airport
6 Oct · 16:10 → 22:36
British Airways
Barcelona → London Heathrow Airport
6 Oct · 09:10 → 13:08
British Airways
Nice → London City Airport
6 Oct · 13:20 → 16:53
British Airways
Manchester → London Heathrow Airport
6 Oct · 08:10 → 11:39
British Airways
Frankfurt-am-Main → London Heathrow Airport
6 Oct · 07:25 → 10:46
British Airways
Inverness → London Heathrow Airport
6 Oct · 09:00 → 12:17
British Airways
Rome → London Heathrow Airport
6 Oct · 09:30 → 12:42
Yours in the list? Check it free and we'll tell you what the airline owes you.
How to claim
Claiming from British Airways
British Airways does not pay compensation automatically. Nothing happens until someone claims, and plenty of first claims come back refused when the airline blames something outside its control.
BA requires signed authorisation to claim on behalf of passengers with a different surname on the same booking, and offers both an online form and a postal claims route.
The rules do not change with the airline. What decides your claim is where the flight took off and how late it landed, not whose aircraft it was.
Checked against British Airways's own site on 12 August 2026.
Your rights
What the rules turn on
Where the flight departed decides everything, not the airline's nationality. Anything leaving a UK airport is covered by UK261 whoever operates it, and anything leaving the EU by EU261. A delay of 3 or more hours on arrival pays £220 to £520 each on the distances British Airways flies, when the cause was within the airline's control, which covers technical faults, crew shortages and the knock-on from a late inbound aircraft. It pays nothing when the cause was genuinely extraordinary, though airlines stretch that word further than the case law supports, so a refusal on those grounds is worth testing rather than accepting.
Other airlines
Source: UK Civil Aviation Authority punctuality statistics, July 2025 to June 2026. Analysis by CheckFlightCompensation; the CAA is credited as the data source as its publication conditions require. Figures cover the 25 largest UK airports. Methodology and limitations.