Three Hours, Six Years.

UK261 is the post-Brexit version of EU Regulation 261/2004, retained in UK law in 2019. The compensation tiers are unchanged and denominated in pounds for UK departures (Source: Air Passenger Rights and Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.):

• £220 for short-haul flights up to 1,500 km (e.g. London to Edinburgh, Paris, Amsterdam).
• £350 for medium-haul, 1,500 to 3,500 km (e.g. London to Athens, Marrakech, Tel Aviv).
• £520 for long-haul, over 3,500 km (e.g. London to New York, Dubai, Singapore). Halved to £260 if the delay is between three and four hours.

The amount is paid per passenger, in cash. It is not a voucher, it is not deducted from any refund you separately receive for the flight, and a family of four on a delayed long-haul return is entitled to £2,080 in their own right. Children pay the adult tier; there is no discount on the compensation (Source: CAA UK261 delays and cancellations guidance, 2025.).

Two qualifying conditions matter. The flight must arrive at destination at least three hours late, measured by door-open time, not push-back. And the delay or cancellation must be within the airline’s control. Severe weather, unforeseen air-traffic-control disruption and properly substantiated security incidents are extraordinary; crew rostering, technical faults on the aircraft, and now staff illness are not. More on that below.

For a decade after EU261 took effect, airlines defended a growing number of refusals by stretching the “extraordinary circumstances” exemption. The first major narrowing came in Huzar v Jet2.com in 2014, where the Court of Appeal held that a routine technical fault on an aircraft is not extraordinary; it is part of running an airline (Source: Huzar v Jet2.com [2014] EWCA Civ 791.). Most mechanical refusals have collapsed since.

The next decade was spent on staff. British Airways, in particular, argued in Lipton v BA Cityflyer that a captain calling in sick the morning of a flight was outside the airline’s control and therefore extraordinary. The argument was rejected at every stage, and on 10 July 2024 the UK Supreme Court delivered the final word: staff illness is inherent to operating an airline, and an airline cannot avoid UK261 compensation by treating its own crew rostering as an external event (Source: Lipton v BA Cityflyer Ltd [2024] UKSC 24, judgment of 10 July 2024.).

That single ruling closes the most-used denial reason of the past five years. Bott & Co and AirHelp both flagged it as the most consequential UK261 decision since Huzar. If you have had a UK261 claim refused since 2018 on grounds of crew illness, the refusal is very likely no longer defensible, and the claim may still be in time.

UK261 does not set its own time limit, so the general limitation rules apply. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the window is six years, under section 5 of the Limitation Act 1980; in Scotland it is five, under the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973. The Court of Appeal confirmed in Dawson v Thomson Airways in 2014 that the standard six-year contract limitation period applies to flight compensation claims (Source: Dawson v Thomson Airways [2014] EWCA Civ 845.).

That means a London passenger on a flight delayed in summer 2020 can still bring a UK261 claim today. Most airlines do not advertise this. Their booking apps tend to surface a “contact us within 14 days” note that has nothing to do with the legal window; it is a customer-service preference, not the rule.

The Civil Aviation Authority has long pushed for stronger direct enforcement powers. As of 2024 the regulator could only pursue airlines through the courts, a slow route that has limited the number of formal monetary fines. In early 2024 the CAA opened formal enforcement against Wizz Air UK over poor handling of cancellations and EU261 claims, with Wizz signing undertakings to pay outstanding claims (Source: CAA enforcement notice, Wizz Air UK, February 2024.). For most passengers the practical route is still the airline’s own portal.

The check is mechanical. Pull up the flight, confirm scheduled and actual arrival times, look up the great-circle distance, decide which tier applies, and check whether the airline’s stated cause of delay falls inside or outside the extraordinary-circumstances list. None of that is hard; it is just tedious to do for every flight in your booking history.

Untap reads your booking confirmation and does the check against current flight-status data. We tell you what the tier is, whether the cause of delay disqualifies the claim, and how to file with the airline. Forward your confirmation to the address inside your Untap inbox and we will flag every claimable journey. We do not file the claim. That part stays with you, on the airline’s portal.

The full how-to, with screenshots and the edge cases, lives in our guide: Flight compensation, explained.