3 distance bands that decide what a delayed flight is worth

The three bands

EC 261 sets compensation in three distance tiers, and the United Kingdom copied the structure almost pound for pound after Brexit. The same three bands therefore appear twice - once in euros, once in pounds. The delay clock runs to final arrival, not departure: land three hours late on a short flight and you qualify.

There is one small mercy built in for the airline on the longest trips. If you arrive between three and four hours late on a flight over 3,500 kilometres, the payout drops to 300 euros, or 260 pounds, instead of the full amount. Arrive more than four hours late and the full 600 euros, or 520 pounds, returns to the table.

Why a cheap ticket can pay big

This is the part I keep coming back to. Compensation is keyed to distance, not fare, so a discounted Ryanair seat and a last-minute business-class ticket sit in the same band when they fly the same route. A 40-euro short hop can return 250 euros - more than six times the fare. A long-haul ticket bought for 300 euros in a sale can return 600. The law quietly bets that your time has a fixed value the airline cannot discount.

Where the bands apply

The rules do not care about your passport. A flight departing an EU or UK airport is covered regardless of which airline operates it, and a flight into the EU or UK is covered when an EU or UK carrier runs it. A New Yorker flying home from Paris on a French airline is inside the rules; that same New Yorker on a US carrier heading out of New York is not. It is the route and the carrier, not the nationality, that decide.

When the airline gets to say no

The carve-out is extraordinary circumstances, and it is broad: weather, airport-staff strikes, air-traffic failures. Those are not the airline's fault, the law reasons, so no cash. Technical problems, overbooking, and a missed connection caused by an earlier leg of the same ticket do not count as extraordinary, and compensation still applies there.

The September 8, 2026 air-traffic outage in the UK is the clean recent example. It was the third major failure of the national system in three summers, after 2023 and 2025. Because the fault sat with air-traffic control rather than any airline, the 250-to-600-euro payouts were unlikely - even as more than a thousand flights were cancelled and the care duties stayed in force.

If you do claim, keep the boarding pass and any receipts for food or taxis, and know that you can file directly with the airline for free. Claims companies will do the paperwork and take a cut of anything they win, which is a fair trade for some people and a needless tax for others.

I understand why people skip all this until a trip is ruined. But the bands do not expire, and they do not care whether you booked direct or through a discount site. Knowing your band before you fly is the difference between a shrug and a surprise windfall. We wrote it down so the next delay finds you ready.