--- title: "London Gatwick Flight Delay and Cancellation Compensation" url: https://flightcompensations.com/airports/london-gatwick author: "Jaacov Sonenblick" published: 2026-09-04 updated: 2026-10-06 publisher: FlightCompensations summary: "Held up at London Gatwick? UK261 can be worth £220 to £520 per passenger. Check your flight free and pay a single €39 fee only if the claim succeeds." --- # London Gatwick flight delay and cancellation compensation Held up at London Gatwick? UK261 can be worth £220 to £520 per passenger. Check your flight free and pay a single €39 fee only if the claim succeeds. ## London Gatwick flight delay or cancellation: what are your rights? 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. ## What causes most delays and cancellations at Gatwick? 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. ## How to claim London Gatwick compensation Start with the flight itself. Our [free flight check](/claim) reads the recorded times for your flight from London Gatwick and tells you which band it falls in, in about two minutes. A London Gatwick compensation claim turns on two things: the arrival time, and the reason the airline gives. For a late arrival, read the [flight delay compensation guide](/flight-delay-compensation). For a flight that never flew, read the [cancellation compensation guide](/flight-cancellation-compensation). It covers London Gatwick cancellation compensation too. Has the airline said no? The [case law summary](/passenger-rights/case-law) sets out what the courts make of the usual excuses. ## Frequently asked questions ### Can I claim if my package holiday flight from Gatwick was delayed? Yes. UK261 applies to charter and package flights just as it does to scheduled ones. The claim is against the operating airline, and it is separate from anything the tour operator owes you. ### The airline rebooked me the next morning. Do I still get compensation? If the rebooking means you reached your final destination three or more hours later than scheduled, yes — subject to the cause being within the airline's control. You are also owed a hotel and meals overnight. ### How far back can I claim for a Gatwick flight? Older flights are frequently still claimable, but the time limit depends on where the claim is brought. Send us the details and we will tell you whether it is still in time before you spend any effort on it. ### Does a delayed departure but on-time arrival count? No. If the crew makes up time in the air and you land less than three hours late, no compensation is due, though duty of care you were owed at the airport still stands. ## Sources - https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32004R0261 - https://www.caa.co.uk/passengers/resolving-travel-problems/delays-and-cancellations/ - https://curia.europa.eu/juris/liste.jsf?num=C-402/07 - https://curia.europa.eu/juris/liste.jsf?num=C-549/07 - https://curia.europa.eu/juris/liste.jsf?num=C-195/17 - https://curia.europa.eu/juris/liste.jsf?num=C-452/13 Read the full page with the claim check at https://flightcompensations.com/airports/london-gatwick