How to Get Compensated if Your British Airways Flight Was Delayed or Cancelled

Written By Joanna Teljeur

9 minutes read
Last Updated: May 2, 2025

British Airways might owe you as much as £520 for delays and cancellations. How do we know? Well because our legal experts have already secured over £2,150,000 in compensation from the airline for travellers just like you! So, let’s look at what makes your flight qualify and what you need to do to get the money you deserve.

Want to skip the read, and see if your BA flight qualifies for payment? Enter your flight info and find out!

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What British Airways Owes You for Flight Delays 

First, here’s what you need to know: The UK's air passenger rights laws (UK261) state that if you have a flight delay, you can get cash from the airline as well as help at the airport. How much you get for either depends on how long you wait AND the distance of your trip.

Need to check the status of your flight? Use our BA flight status tool for live updates.

How Much Will You Get?

You could get cash from the airline if you ARRIVE at least 3 hours late at your destination. This is an important detail that causes a lot of confusion for passengers because it sounds like any 3 hour delay will lead to a compensation. But this isn’t true. The delay time is calculated on when you arrive, not when you depart. 

Here’s how much you can get for 3+ hour delays (and cancellations)

• £220 (€250) for flights under 1,500km
• £350 (€400) for flights between 1,500-3,500km
• £520 (€600) for flights over 3,500km

Here’s an important point: If your flight was over 3,500km, and you arrive between 3 and 4 hours of your scheduled arrival time, BA will attempt to reduce the £520 to £260. But knowing this, we always try to get the full amount for our clients.

Finally, you will only get a payment from the airline if the airline is at fault, meaning they should have been able to keep the delay from happening in the first place. 

You might have heard about the massive power outage on April 28, 2025 that affected Spain and Portugal. The blackout grounded countless flights, including those for British Airways. It’s a perfect example of an uncontrollable situation. Even though the affected passengers faced plenty of hardship and inconvenience, they won’t be eligible for delay compensation.

Did you know that in February 2025, Cirium found that 86.89% of BA’s flights operated on-time? This is a huge improvement from the airline’s 2024 punctuality score of just 67.83%. Fingers crossed, this trend will continue, and BA passengers will see fewer and fewer delays. 

But, if you’re one of the unlucky 14% who had a delay, you can see how much you’re owed in seconds. Just enter a few basic details about your flight in our compensation calculator.

Stuck at the Airport? Get Care & Assistance

So, now you have a few hours to kill before your flight takes off. The good news? You can get vouchers or coupons from British Airways for food and drinks any time you have to wait for at least 2 hours. Better still, if you have an overnight delay, they’ll put you up in a hotel for the night AND provide transportation there and back to the airport. 

Hold on to your receipts if you have to pay for food, drinks, or a hotel stay. You can submit these with your compensation claim and get reimbursed.

What About Really Long Delays?

If you have a really long delay of 5 hours or more, you can cancel and get a refund for the unused parts of your ticket OR get a seat on a new flight. You can also just keep your original booking and wait out the delay, but if you choose a refund or a rebooking BA won’t charge you anything extra.

When a Delay Makes You Miss a Connection

Lots of passengers miss their connecting flights because of an earlier delay (or cancellation). But the good news is that you can probably get compensated as long as both segments of your trip were on the same booking. The amount you end up getting will be based on how late you arrive and the distance of your entire journey.

If You Had a BA Codeshare Flight

If you booked your ticket with British Airways, but the flight was operated by a different carrier, it is known as a codeshare flight. So, if you had a qualifying flight delay, you would be compensated by the operating airline.

Here’s how it works:

You buy a ticket from London to Helsinki with British Airways, but the actual flight is with Finnair. You’re delayed for 4 hours and decide to submit a claim for compensation. To do this, you would make the claim with Finnair, even though you bought your ticket through British Airways.

British Airways Codeshare Partners

BA is the founding member of Oneworld Alliance, so they have codeshare agreements with the following airlines.

• American Airlines (U.S.)
• Iberia (Spain)
• Finnair (Finland)
• Japan Airlines (JAL) (Japan)
• Qantas (Australia)
• Cathay Pacific (Hong Kong)
• Qatar Airways (Qatar)
• Malaysia Airlines (Malaysia)
• Royal Jordanian (Jordan)
• SriLankan Airlines (Sri Lanka)

BA Flight Delayed? Here’s a Common Scenario to Help you Understand

Imagine you have a flight from London to New York. You’re at the airport and find out your flight is delayed for 3.5 hours because of a crew shortage. Because you’re waiting at least 2 hours, you can get free food and refreshment coupons from BA. 

When you finally land in New York, your arrival time is now 4 hours later than your scheduled arrival time. So, you qualify for £520 in cash compensation.

Flight Delay Cheat Sheet

Cancelled Flight? Here’s What to Expect 

Anytime a British Airways flight is cancelled, you can expect a refund OR a seat on the next available flight - your choice without any additional cost. 

You can also get cash compensation, but this is based on:

• The distance of the flight AND
• When British Airways notified you about the cancellation. 

So, if BA cancels your flight LESS than two weeks before departure, you’ll get between £220 and £520, depending on the flight distance (see the delay compensation table above). And, as with delays, the final decision about payment hinges on whether or not the airline can be blamed for the cancellation. 

According to data from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), British Airways cancelled 3.2% of its flights in 2024, meaning that roughly 1 in every 31 BA flights was cancelled.

Were you affected by a cancellation?Check your flight. It’s free

What if Your Seat is Downgraded?

If your BA flight was cancelled and you choose to be rebooked, you might get a seat in a lower cabin class from the one you purchased. This is known as a seating class downgrade, and you can get between 30% and 75% of the price of your ticket, depending on the distance of that flight.

Can You Get a Refund AND Compensation?

Yes, you can! If BA cancelled your flight within 14 days of departure AND they are to blame, then you could get a refund, if you decide not to travel, plus compensation based on the flight distance.

Cancelled Flight Cheat Sheet

How to Get British Airways to Pay You

We’ve been collecting compensation payouts from airlines around the world since 2017. So, based on this knowledge and experience, we’re going to explain exactly what you need to do to get paid by the airline.  

Step #1: See if your flight qualifies

The fastest and easiest way to see if you qualify is by using a compensation calculator. You just enter the basic details of your flight, and you’ll see if you can get compensated as well as the amount you’re owed.

Step #2: Organise your travel documents

You have to prove to BA why you are owed compensation. This means you’ll have to send them copies of all your travel documents to show that you were a ticket passenger. So, get your:

• Boarding pass, 
• Booking receipt, 
• Any conversations or notifications you had with the airline about the delay or cancellation
• Evidence of the delay or cancellation

Step #3: Write a letter to the airline

Take your time with this part, because you have to fully describe what happened, when, where, and why you deserve to be compensated. To make this easier, you can use our letter template and just enter the details about your specific situation.

Step #4: Send your claim to British Airways

British Airways likes it when you send your claims through their claim form, but you can also send them your letter by post. As long as you send it to them in writing, you’re good. You can find all the BA contact information here.

Also, you have to submit your claim within 5 years for Scotland and 6 years for England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. If you flew anywhere else, check to see the filing deadline for other areas.

Step #5: Give them a few weeks to respond

Don’t expect to get a response or a decision the next day. It can take a week or so for BA to acknowledge your claim and another few weeks for them to reach a decision. But this doesn’t mean you can’t follow up if you haven’t heard from them. Whatever you do, just be sure you’re polite and respectful.

Here’s some recent feedback from a BA passenger who wrote a review on TripAdvisor:

So, having my flight delayed by 9hrs, wiping out the first day of my holiday, I sought my mandatory compensation. Duly processed my claim and now await payment supposedly processed in 14 days, now waiting in excess of 17 days for this payment. - Donald J.

If BA Rejects Your Claim

Don’t be surprised if your claim is rejected. It happens more often than you think, but it doesn’t mean you have to just accept this decision. If you feel that BA has unfairly rejected your claim, then you can escalate your case to the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). 

If you don’t want to deal with it, our legal team can pick up your case and sort it out for you. To date, we’ve helped over 450,000 get compensated by airlines around the world. Not only that, but we have a 98% win rate. So, send us your flight details, and we’ll take care of the rest.

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