Up to one million delayed passengers could get compensation
Almost a quarter of flights to or from the UK were delayed by 15 minutes or more in the year to March 2016 and over 10,000 of those were more than three hours late.
Research from Which? reveals 24% of the 1.9 million flights to or from the UK between April 2015 and March 2016 were delayed by 15 minutes or more, affecting around 43 million passenger journeys.
Of the 449,000 flights, over 10,000 were more than three hours late, leaving up to a million passengers potentially in line for compensation under the current EU Denied Boarding Regulation.
However, Which? warns that passengers on flights delayed due to factors such as extreme weather or airport strikes, are unlikely to get compensation.
Long-haul travellers could be entitled to £250 (€300) if their plane landed between three or four hours late, or £510 (€600) if their flight was at least four hours behind schedule.
Which? analysis showed that 183,000 long-haul passenger journeys were delayed by at least three hours.
Passengers flying short haul are also potentially eligible to claim up to £210 (€250) if they were delayed by more than three hours.
Which? found that 729,000 short-haul passenger journeys were affected by such a delay over the period analysed.
Southend Airport was named as the location where passengers were most likely to be delayed on short-haul flights, with 1.7% of journeys delayed by three hours or more.
Gatwick and Manchester Airports suffered the most delays to long-haul journeys, with 1.3% of journeys delayed beyond three hours.
Vueling (1.9%), Loganair (1.6%) and Auringny (1.3%) are named as the airlines with the highest percentage of delays of three hours or more to their short haul flights.
Thomas Cook is placed sixth, EasyJet 10th and Thomson Airways 11th in the short-haul delay rankings.
Passengers travelling with Pakistan International Airlines (4.2%), Air India (3.7%) and US Airways (2.1%) are most likely to face three hour delays on long haul flights. The average delay time for a Pakistan International Airlines flight was nearly 45 minutes.
Which? director of policy and campaigns Alex Neill said: "We know that tens of thousands of passengers on late running flights aren’t claiming the compensation they’re due and so we encourage people to claim what they’re rightly entitled to."
Lisa
Lisa joined Travel Weekly nearly 25 years ago as technology reporter and then sailed around the world for a couple of years as cruise correspondent, before becoming deputy editor. Now freelance, Lisa writes for various print and web publications, edits Corporate Traveller’s client magazine, Gateway, and works on the acclaimed Remembering Wildlife series of photography books, which raise awareness of nature’s most at-risk species and helps to fund their protection.
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