Flight delayed 4 hours or more: full compensation and your extra rights

Why 4 hours matters

Compensation starts at 3 hours, but the Regulation’s long-haul reduction lets airlines halve the amount for flights over 3,500 km when you arrive less than 4 hours late. At 4 hours the reduction disappears: London–New York pays the full £520, Paris–Tokyo the full €600. On short and medium flights nothing changes at 4 hours — the full €250 or €400 was already due from 3 hours.

Four hours is also the care threshold for long-haul flights: from that point the airline must offer meals and refreshments, two calls or e-mails and — if the delay pushes departure to the next day — hotel accommodation and transport. On shorter flights care starts earlier (2 hours up to 1,500 km, 3 hours up to 3,500 km).

How the delay is measured

At the final destination, from the scheduled arrival time to the moment the aircraft door opens (Germanwings v Henning). Departure delay is irrelevant: a flight that leaves 4 hours late and arrives 3 h 50 late is a 3 h 50 delay. On one booking with a connection, the delay counts at the last airport (Folkerts), so a 4-hour delay on a feeder that costs you the connection is measured by when you finally arrived.

Five hours: the refund option

If the delay reaches 5 hours you may choose not to travel and claim a full refund of the ticket within 7 days — plus a return flight to your point of departure if you have already started a multi-leg journey. Choosing the refund does not cancel the compensation claim for the delay.

Overnight delays

When a flight is postponed to the next day, the airline must provide a hotel and transport to it. If it tells you to arrange your own, book something reasonable, keep the receipts and claim them back as expenses on top of the fixed compensation. Care is owed whatever the cause — an extraordinary circumstance removes the compensation, never the hotel.

Missed connections

A 4-hour delay on a feeder flight almost always means a missed connection. On a single booking the airline must re-route you and compensation is calculated on the whole journey’s distance: a short delayed feeder into a long-haul flight pays the long-haul amount.

Six realistic scenarios

Manchester → New York on Virgin Atlantic, arrived 4 h 05 late. 5,400 km, over 4 hours: the full £520 each. At 3 h 55 the airline could have paid £260.

Frankfurt → Bangkok on Lufthansa, arrived 3 h 50 late. Over 3,500 km, under 4 hours: Lufthansa may pay €300 instead of €600.

Paris → Réunion on Air France, arrived 4 h 30 late. 9,300 km but both airports are in the EU, so the intra-EU cap applies: €400, and no reduction question arises.

Dublin → Malaga on Ryanair, departed 4 hours late, arrived 3 h 40 late. 1,900 km: €400 each — the amount was already full from 3 hours; the departure delay changes nothing.

Edinburgh → London → Singapore on one BA booking, feeder delayed 55 minutes, arrived in Singapore 22 hours late. Measured in Singapore: £520 each plus the hotel BA had to provide.

Rome → Madrid on Iberia, delayed 6 hours by a technical fault; you went home instead. Full refund of the unused ticket within 7 days, plus €250 compensation — the technical fault is not extraordinary.

What the airline may argue

Only extraordinary circumstances — weather that prevented your flight, ATC restrictions, security incidents, external strikes, bird strikes — exempt the airline, never technical faults, crew problems or its own staff’s strikes. Long delays are often the end of a chain of events: the airline must prove the original cause was extraordinary and that it could not have used a spare aircraft or crew to recover the rotation. The cause-by-cause table is on the extraordinary circumstances page.

How to claim

Write to the operating airline with the flight, the arrival delay in hours and minutes, the distance band and the amount, and attach proof of the actual arrival (arrivals-board photo, flight-tracker screenshot). The claim letter guide has the wording; the generator writes it from your flight.