Flight delay and cancellation compensation at London Gatwick

Your rights when a flight from London Gatwick is disrupted

If a Gatwick departure gets you to your final destination three hours late or worse, the operating airline may owe you a fixed sum on top of whatever it does to get you moving again. UK261 sets that sum by distance: £220 up to 1,500 km, £350 from 1,500 to 3,500 km, and £520 beyond that. Under EU261 the equivalents are €250, €400 and €600. The same entitlement is triggered by a cancellation notified inside fourteen days of departure and by denied boarding on an oversold flight. Compensation is per passenger, so a family of four claims four times, and it is unaffected by how little the tickets cost.

Which rules apply at London Gatwick

Every flight leaving Gatwick is a UK departure, which brings UK261 into play regardless of the airline's nationality — a US, Gulf or Asian carrier taking off from Gatwick is caught just as a British one is. Flights inbound to Gatwick are covered only when a UK or EU/EEA airline is operating them. Because Gatwick mixes short European hops with long-haul and leisure routes, the framework that applies to your outbound leg is not always the one that applies coming home, and it is worth checking each direction separately rather than assuming symmetry.

What to do at the airport

Get the airline's stated reason for the disruption and keep it. Verbal explanations at a gate have a habit of changing later, so a screenshot of the app notification or an email is more useful than a memory of what a staff member said. Record the moment the aircraft doors opened on arrival, since that is the reference point regulators use. Duty of care starts at two, three or four hours depending on distance and covers food, drink and overnight accommodation with transfers where needed; if the airline provides nothing, buy something reasonable and keep the receipts to claim back separately from any compensation.

Common causes of disruption

Gatwick handles a heavy schedule from a constrained airfield, so a single early setback tends to ripple onward: aircraft rotations are tight, and a delay arriving is very often a delay departing. Strong winds and low cloud in winter, convective storms in summer, and European air traffic flow measures on busy weekends all show up regularly in disruption notices. Airline-side causes — technical defects found at the stand, crews timing out, ground handling and baggage-system problems, or a commercial decision to consolidate two thin flights into one — sit inside the carrier's control and normally leave a valid claim intact.

Claiming for a flight from London Gatwick

Run the free eligibility check first: it tells you whether UK261 or EU261 governs the flight, which distance band applies and what evidence will help. Where an airline pleads extraordinary circumstances, it must prove both the event and that it took all reasonable measures to avoid the consequences — an assertion alone is not a defence. Our fee is a fixed €39 success fee, charged only after a payout lands, with no upfront cost and nothing owed if the claim does not succeed.