How long do you have to claim?
6 years in England and Wales. 5 in Scotland.
That means a delayed flight from 2020 can still be worth £220 to £520 each today. Most people have long since thrown the boarding pass away, and they do not need it.
The question that decides it
When did you fly?
- Within the last 6 years, or 5 if you are in Scotland.
- £220 to £520each Still claimable. You do not need your ticket or your boarding pass.
- Longer ago than that.
- Out of time. The limit is the law’s, not the airline’s, and it cannot be extended.
Our own flight records only reach 6 months back. That has nothing to do with whether you are owed.
Claim firms take a success fee, typically 20-30% plus VAT, so you receive less than the figure above. A claim firm only gets paid if it wins.
We earn a fee if you claim through it.
The thing airlines rely on
The airline's deadline is not the legal one
Airlines publish their own claim windows, and some are short. That figure is the airline's policy for its own complaints process. It is not the limit on your right to bring a claim, and it cannot be, because that limit is set by the law on how long you have to sue over a debt.
So a page telling you to claim within a few weeks is telling you when it would prefer to hear from you. Miss it and you have not lost anything.
Check an old flight
You do not need the paperwork
The flight number and the date are enough. Our own records only reach about six months back, so for anything older this asks you a few questions instead and still works out the figure.
Check your flight
Pick your airports and the date you flew. We'll list every flight on that route that day.
Enter your flight number and date. The airline's name works too, like “easyjet 8706”. Free, takes seconds.
A few quick questions. No personal details needed.
The catch
Old claims are harder to argue, not harder to win
The amount does not shrink with age, and the airline does not get a discount for having taken a long time to be asked. What does change is evidence. The airline keeps its own records of why a flight ran late, and the further back you go the more likely it is to say it no longer holds them.
That cuts both ways. The burden of proving the delay was outside its control sits with the airline, so “we no longer have the records” is not a defence, it is the airline failing to make its own case. In practice an old claim is more likely to be stonewalled than refused on its merits, which is the point at which handing it to someone who does this for a living stops being an upsell.