How the site works
Methodology and data sources
The checker, long-term statistics and live delay pages use different sources. This page explains what each figure means, when it changes, and what it cannot prove about one individual flight.
CAA punctuality statistics
Airline, airport, country and route statistics use the UK Civil Aviation Authority's published punctuality data for July 2025 to June 2026. We aggregate the same reporting window across those page types, apply minimum flight-volume thresholds, and calculate comparisons from the published flight counts, average delays and punctuality rates.
The source combines arriving and departing traffic in its standard full-analysis files. Pages therefore describe traffic between places or at an airport, rather than claiming every record represents one direction. The CAA also cautions that historic aggregate performance does not predict what will happen to an individual flight.
Live and archived delay pages
The delayed-today and delay archive pages are not CAA statistics. They come from our own repeated flight-status sweeps at the airports listed on those pages. The live page and current month can change as flights land; completed daily pages are dated archives. These are tracked-airport totals, not national or worldwide totals.
A status feed can be corrected after arrival, and a cancellation or long delay does not by itself prove compensation is due. Coverage, the cause of the disruption and the passenger's final arrival time still matter.
Compensation estimates
For UK and EU journeys, the calculator applies the official coverage rules and distance bands. Route distances are great-circle estimates between airports. The result is general information, not legal advice, and the airline may hold facts about the disruption that the checker cannot see.
Flights touching the United States are also checked against US Department of Transportation refund rules; these are not presented as an EU-style fixed delay payment. Flights to, from or within Canada are checked against the Air Passenger Protection Regulations. Where a refund, care or Canadian cash amount depends on facts absent from the flight-status feed, the checker asks for those facts and does not guess. Each jurisdiction is evaluated independently, so one applicable set of rights does not hide another.
Corrections and updates
Monthly CAA datasets are refreshed when a new reporting month is available. Live delay data is rebuilt separately. Sitemap dates follow those source updates rather than the date of every site build. If a figure or explanation looks wrong, email hello@checkflightcompensation.com.
Last reviewed 31 August 2026.