# Glasgow Airport delays: £220–£520 under UK261

Source: https://airtravelrights.com/airports/glasgow/

> The operating airline pays UK261 compensation, not Glasgow Airport. CAA 2025: 69.7% of its 65,973 matched flights ran on time, average delay 12.1 minutes.

# Glasgow Airport: flight delay and cancellation rights

Glasgow Airport matched 65,973 flights in the CAA's 2025 file at an average delay of 12.1 minutes. UK261 puts the £220-to-£520 compensation duty on the operating airline, never on the airport, once arrival runs three hours or more late — and Glasgow, Scotland's transatlantic and holiday gateway, faces its own unsettled limitation question, covered later on this page.

## Which rules cover delayed flights departing Glasgow Airport?

Glasgow-departing flights fall inside UK261 without exception, on any route and however you booked: article 3(1)(a) covers "passengers departing from an airport located in the United Kingdom", whatever carrier is flying, and article 3(5) sends the bill to that airline, never to Glasgow Airport itself.

A flight arriving at Glasgow works differently. Article 3(1)(b)(i) covers one from outside the UK only if the operator holds a UK licence, such as Loganair, or an EU licence, such as Lufthansa. Already claimed benefits, compensation and assistance in the country you left? That inbound cover then lapses, and an airline holding neither licence gives none at all. Where the itinerary began decides this: a single booking is measured from its first leg, so a Glasgow connection on a trip that began abroad is not a Glasgow departure.

That licence test also decides which currency you end up claiming in. A Lufthansa flight into Glasgow is covered here because of its EU licence, but the same aircraft leaving Frankfurt is [EU261](https://airtravelrights.com/eu261/)'s case in euros, not UK261's in pounds. A Glasgow itinerary reaching Canada picks up the [Air Passenger Protection Regulations](https://airtravelrights.com/canada-appr/) on that sector, and one continuing inside the US meets rules that [require no compensation for a domestic delay](https://airtravelrights.com/us-dot/); the [which-law test](https://airtravelrights.com/which-law-covers-my-flight/) sorts a trip that does both. Where [UK261](https://airtravelrights.com/uk261/) does apply, the [band table](https://airtravelrights.com/uk261/flight-delay-compensation/) gives the amount and a refusal has [its own next step](https://airtravelrights.com/airline-refused-compensation/) - though the Scottish deadline set out below is not the one the [other UK airports](https://airtravelrights.com/airports/) run on.

Source: UK261 art. 3(1)(a), 3(1)(b), 3(1A), 3(5) - legislation.gov.uk; EU261 art. 3(1)(a) - eur-lex.europa.eu, checked 2026-09-15.

## How much is due for a delayed flight from Glasgow Airport?

UK261 articles 6(3) and 7(1) set the compensation ladder for Glasgow departures at £220, £350 or £520 a head, banded by distance, and it activates the moment your flight arrives three hours or more late. Only genuine, unavoidable extraordinary circumstances cancel that debt.

Passengers becoming free to leave the aircraft is what article 2(n) counts as arrival — three hours minus a minute earns nothing, three hours exactly earns the full amount. Past 3,500 km, article 7(2) permits — never compels — the airline to cut the top payment to £260 for a three-to-four-hour arrival, restoring the full £520 past four hours.

Cancellation pay hinges on warning time, not on how far you were flying. Fourteen days' notice or more wipes out any claim. Cut into the seven-to-fourteen-day window, and the airline is still off the hook as long as the replacement leaves no more than 2 hours early and lands within 4 hours of schedule; inside seven days, that leeway drops to 1 hour early and 2 hours late. Proving when it told you is the airline's job.

Source: UK261 art. 2(n), 5(1)(c), 5(4), 6(3)-(4), 7(1)-(2) - legislation.gov.uk; CAA, Delays - caa.co.uk, checked 2026-09-15.

## How often do flights at Glasgow Airport actually run late?

65,973 flights at Glasgow Airport were matched in the UK Civil Aviation Authority's 2025 punctuality statistics. 69.7% ran within the CAA's two "on time" bands, 15 minutes early to 15 minutes late, and the average delay was 12.1 minutes; 1.76% of flights were cancelled with less than 24 hours' notice.

Break the total in two and 40.5% of Glasgow's flights landed 15 minutes early to 1 minute early, with a further 29.2% landing 0 to 15 minutes late. Both bands come from runway and gate timing, a different clock from the cabin-door moment UK261 relies on. All-cargo, oil-rig, air-taxi, positioning, private and military flights are excluded, and the CAA offers no accuracy guarantee and accepts no liability for reliance on the numbers.

Heathrow's own 2025 average, 12.8 minutes across 475,582 flights in the same CAA file, is longer than Glasgow's 12.1 minutes, on a fraction of the traffic. [Aberdeen](https://airtravelrights.com/airports/aberdeen/) goes shorter still, 10.8 minutes, the shortest average delay of the 25 airports the file covers, though it cancelled 3.4% of flights against Glasgow's 1.76%. None of this decides a claim: what matters is your own flight's doors-open time, not the airport's yearly average.

Source: UK Civil Aviation Authority, 2025 Annual Punctuality Statistics Summary Analysis - caa.co.uk, checked 2026-09-18.

## Where do you complain after a disrupted Glasgow Airport flight?

No reply to your written complaint after 8 weeks opens the door to ADR, run by one of two CAA-approved schemes, AviationADR or CEDR, neither of which charges the passenger; which scheme takes a Glasgow Airport case depends on the airline you flew.

A written complaint to the airline comes first, never the CAA. Loganair, Glasgow's own Scottish carrier, appears on none of the three CAA-recognised lists, and Jet2 sits in the same gap. Both fall to the CAA's Passenger Advice and Complaints Team (PACT), which cannot impose a solution and will not take a case with under a year left to sue ([Small claims court flight compensation](https://airtravelrights.com/uk261/small-claims-court/)).

Scotland runs a genuinely different, unsettled deadline. Two statutory routes conflict, and no Scottish court has chosen between them since the 2023 amendment: the five-year prescription under the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973 (s.6(1), Sch. 1 paras 1(g) and 1(h)), against article 3(9)'s own pointer to section 9 of the Limitation Act 1980 — a section that applies only in England and Wales. Treat the period as open, not fixed; the CAA's own ADR guidance allows five years if you live in Scotland, against six elsewhere, and PACT refuses any case with under a year left to sue. If Scotland is your forum, a four-year cut-off from the disruption keeps time in hand for PACT or ADR; the [time limits page](https://airtravelrights.com/flight-compensation-time-limits/) has the fuller picture. Get your complaint in writing before that clock runs down.

Source: Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973, s.6(1) and Sch. 1 - legislation.gov.uk; UK261 art. 3(9), inserted by SI 2023/1370 reg. 2(4) - legislation.gov.uk; Limitation Act 1980, s.9 - legislation.gov.uk; CAA, Alternative dispute resolution and How the CAA can help - caa.co.uk, checked 2026-09-15.

General information, not legal advice. For your specific case: the CAA, Citizens Advice or a solicitor.

## Sources

- Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 as it forms part of UK law, arts. 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 - [legislation.gov.uk](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2004/261/contents), checked 2026-09-15.
- The Aviation (Consumers) (Amendment) Regulations 2023 (SI 2023/1370) - [legislation.gov.uk](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2023/1370/made), checked 2026-09-15.
- Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, art. 3 - [eur-lex.europa.eu](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32004R0261), checked 2026-09-15.
- Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973, s.6(1) and Sch. 1 - [legislation.gov.uk](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1973/52/section/6), checked 2026-09-15.
- Limitation Act 1980, s.9 - [legislation.gov.uk](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1980/58/section/9), checked 2026-09-15.
- Civil Aviation Authority, Delays - [caa.co.uk](https://www.caa.co.uk/air-passengers/travel-problems-and-rights/flight-delays-and-cancellations/delays/), checked 2026-09-15.
- Civil Aviation Authority, Alternative dispute resolution - [caa.co.uk](https://www.caa.co.uk/air-passengers/travel-problems-and-rights/travel-complaints/alternative-dispute-resolution/), checked 2026-09-15.
- Civil Aviation Authority, How the CAA can help - [caa.co.uk](https://www.caa.co.uk/air-passengers/travel-problems-and-rights/travel-complaints/how-the-caa-can-help/), checked 2026-09-15.
- AviationADR, airline and airport members - [aviationadr.org.uk](https://www.aviationadr.org.uk/complaints-process/airline-and-airport-members-aviationadr/), checked 2026-09-15.
- CEDR, Aviation - [cedr-assist.com](https://www.cedr-assist.com/consumer/aviation/overview/), checked 2026-09-15.
- UK Civil Aviation Authority, 2025 Annual Punctuality Statistics Summary Analysis - [caa.co.uk](https://www.caa.co.uk/Documents/Download/24022/3d82eddc-84f7-4692-bc12-a9ab96562d04/1712), checked 2026-09-18.