Flights between Heathrow and Madrid: what a delay is worth
Leaving Heathrow
£220 per passenger, UK261
Leaving Madrid
€250 per passenger, EU261
Madrid is in the EU, so this applies whichever airline you fly.
Either figure is payable only when the delay was within the airline's control. A technical fault, a crew shortage or a late inbound aircraft all count; genuinely extraordinary circumstances such as severe weather or an air traffic control restriction do not.
Heathrow and Madrid are 1,244 km apart (1,500 km or less), and that distance is all that decides the amount. Which figure applies depends only on which end of the route you departed from, not which way you were travelling.
In the last 12 months, 9,513 flights operated between Heathrow and Madrid, and 0.1% were 3 or more hours late, the threshold where £220 per passenger becomes payable under UK261 (€250 under EU261).
Punctuality is up on last year: 78.3% of flights ran on time against 73.0% in the twelve months before, and the average delay fell from 13 to 10.8 minutes.
| Heathrow to Madrid, last 12 months | Figure | vs year before |
|---|---|---|
| Flights on this route | 9,513 | was 9,249 |
| Ran on time (within 15 min) | 78.3% | ▲ was 73.0% |
| Average delay | 10.8 min | ▼ was 13 min |
| 3h+ late (compensation threshold) | 0.1% | - |
| Cancelled | 0.7% | - |
| Flights 3h+ late (a year) | 10 flights/year | - |
The CAA's figures don't separate arrivals from departures, so this covers the route both ways.
Heathrow to Madrid, month by month
Worst month: July 2025, averaging 17.9 minutes.
Airlines flying this route
| Airline | 3h+ % | On-time % |
|---|---|---|
| Iberia | 0.2% | 78.7% |
| British Airways | 0.1% | 77.7% |
Your rights on this route
Every flight leaving Heathrow for Madrid is covered by UK261, whichever airline operates it. Flights the other way, leaving Madrid for Heathrow, are covered too if a UK or EU airline operated them; a flight that way on a non-UK, non-EU carrier falls outside UK261, though the Montreal Convention may still give you a claim. See the full breakdown on the 3-hour rule. Cancelled instead of delayed? Broadly the same amounts apply under different conditions. See cancelled flight compensation. Flying somewhere else in Spain? See every route between the UK and Spain.
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Other routes from Heathrow
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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.