How much compensation for a delayed SAS flight?
£220 each, if you land 3 hours or more late
Check your flight
FreePick your airports and the date you flew. We'll list every flight on that route that day.
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SAS is better than most of the 80 airlines flying at UK airports for 3-hour delays.
- Flights a year
- 12,861
- Landed on time
- 81.9%
- Land 3 hrs or more late
- 13a year
Last 12 months, CAA data
What you're owed
Every SAS route we hold a distance for falls in the same band, so that is the figure. About 13 SAS flights a year cross that line.
What it pays
Pick the airport you flew from
SAS flies from 5 UK airports, so there is no single distance and no single figure. Open the one you flew from and every destination is priced.
Watch my flight
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 SAS get delayed a lot?
No, less than most. It's better than most of the 80 airlines flying at UK airports, with about 1 flight in 1,000 landing 3 or more hours late (0.1%).
That works out at about 13 flights a year crossing the 3-hour line, which is the point the airline has to pay.
When is it worst?
January 2026, when SAS flights ran an average of 13.2 minutes late.
See all the numbers for SAS
In the last 12 months, SAS operated 12,861 flights at UK airports, and 0.1% were 3 or more hours late, the threshold where £220 each becomes payable.
Flights are landing on time less often than last year: 81.9% ran on time against 82.2% in the twelve months before, and the average delay fell from 8.6 to 8.4 minutes.
| SAS, last 12 months | Figure | vs year before |
|---|---|---|
| Flights at UK airports | 12,861 | was 13,163 |
| Ran on time (within 15 min) | 81.9% | ▼ was 82.2% |
| Average delay | 8.4 min | ▼ was 8.6 min |
| 3 hours or more late (the line where they pay) | 0.1% | - |
| Cancelled | 2.1% | - |
| Flights 3 hours or more late (a year) | 13 flights/year | - |
The CAA's figures combine arrivals and departures, so this covers both directions of travel.
SAS's delays, month by month
Worst month: January 2026, averaging 13.2 minutes.
Where it flies
SAS at each UK airport
| Airport | Flights | Avg delay | 3 hours or more late | Landed on time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heathrow | 7,667 | 7.1 min | 0.1% | 84.4% |
| Manchester | 2,999 | 12.3 min | 0.2% | 73.6% |
| Aberdeen | 981 | 4.5 min | <0.5% | 87.8% |
| Edinburgh | 657 | 8.3 min | 0.2% | 83.1% |
| Birmingham | 557 | 11.3 min | 0.7% | 80.7% |
From our own tracking
Recent SAS flights we logged running late
Every SAS 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.
SAS
Copenhagen → John F. Kennedy International Airport
6 Oct · 17:00
SAS
Oslo → London Heathrow Airport
4 Oct · 09:35 → 12:36
SAS
Stavanger → Aberdeen International Airport
2 Oct · 09:40
SAS
Copenhagen → John F. Kennedy International Airport
26 Sept · 17:00 → 21:05
Yours in the list? Check it free and we'll tell you what the airline owes you.
How to claim
Claiming from SAS
Airlines rarely pay compensation on their own. Nothing happens until someone claims, and plenty of first claims come back refused when the airline blames something outside its control.
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.
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 each on the distances SAS 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.