Gatwick delays: what to do, what you are owed, where to check

On the day, your airline's app is the source to trust: rebookings, gate changes and cancellation notices land there before anywhere else, and during big disruption the app rebooks faster than any queue at a desk. Turn on push alerts for your flight so a change reaches you the moment it happens. The schedule boards on this site (arrivals and departures) give you the other half: the published times and terminals to plan around, so you set off to the right terminal at the right time and let the app handle the rest.

One habit sorts frequent flyers from stranded ones: check before you leave for the airport. A delayed outbound aircraft shows up hours ahead as a late inbound, airlines often pre-warn by app the night before, and problems at Gatwick that are not about your flight at all (a security surge, rail disruption on the Brighton Main Line) are visible early from the airport's own channels and National Rail Enquiries. Ten seconds on the app at home beats three hours in a terminal.

When the screen flips to delayed, do three things in order. First, open the airline's app and see what it is offering; if a rebooking is on the table, the good seats go to whoever accepts fastest. Second, note the numbers that decide your rights: the flight distance, the length of the delay, and later, the time you actually arrive. Third, start keeping receipts for anything the disruption makes you buy, because reasonable costs are claimable when care applies and evidence beats memory.

Gatwick makes no boarding announcements, so stay where you can see a screen, and think before clearing security early on a long delay: landside has the wider (and cheaper) choice of food, and both terminals' departure lounges only help you once a gate is showing. If the delay threatens a connection later in your trip, what happens next depends entirely on whether it is one ticket or two; the connecting flights guide covers both cases.

UK rules (the regulation known as UK261) put the obligations on the airline, not the airport, and they scale with distance and time. Care starts at 2 hours of delay for flights under 1,500km, 3 hours for flights between 1,500km and 3,500km, and 4 hours for anything longer: food and drink appropriate to the wait, two phone calls or emails, and if the delay pushes overnight, a hotel plus the transport to reach it. If the airline cannot organise care during a meltdown, arrange something reasonable yourself and claim it back with receipts. At 5 hours, whatever the cause, you can abandon the trip and take a full refund for the unused parts of the ticket.

Compensation is separate from care and only applies when the cause was within the airline's control: crew shortages, technical faults, scheduling failures. The clock is measured at arrival, not departure, and starts paying at more than 3 hours late.

Per person, fixed sums under UK261, as published by the Civil Aviation Authority. The band follows the flight's distance, not the ticket price.

The airline escapes compensation, never care, when the cause is 'extraordinary circumstances': extreme weather, air traffic control restrictions or strikes by airport or ATC staff. A strike by the airline's own employees does not usually qualify, which is exactly the kind of argument claims turn on. Which conditions actually ground aircraft, and which ones airlines fly through, is set out on Gatwick weather alongside the airport's 30-year record, so you can judge before you travel rather than after.

A cancellation gives you an immediate choice the airline must honour: a full refund for the unused parts of your ticket, or an alternative flight, at the earliest opportunity or at a later date that suits you. The rerouting right has teeth: if another airline flies to your destination significantly sooner, or another mode of transport works, you may have the right to be booked onto it rather than waiting for your own carrier's next seat. While you wait, the same care rules apply as for delays, including the overnight hotel.

Compensation depends on notice. With 14 or more days' warning, none is due. With less, the fixed sums above apply unless the replacement flight the airline offers keeps you close to your original times (broadly: departing no more than an hour early and arriving less than two hours late) or the cause was extraordinary. Cancelled the night before or at the gate, rebooked hours later, cause within the airline's control: that is the classic compensation case at every airport, Gatwick included.

Claim from the airline, not from Gatwick: the airport does not owe compensation and has no claims desk. Every carrier runs a claim form on its website (search the airline's name plus UK261 or EU261), and the claim needs your booking reference, the flight number and date, what happened, and receipts for any care you had to buy yourself. State the arrival delay plainly and name the amount the distance band entitles you to; vague claims invite vague answers.

If the airline rejects the claim or goes quiet, escalate: the Civil Aviation Authority's passenger rights guidance sets out the rules the airline is applying, and its complaints route covers what to do when a carrier refuses, including the dispute-resolution schemes most airlines at Gatwick belong to. Persistence pays: the rules are fixed sums, not goodwill, and a refusal letter is the start of the process, not the end.

If your disruption qualifies for care, the hotel is the airline's problem: ask for it explicitly before you book anything, and if the desk queue is hopeless and the app offers nothing, book something reasonable yourself, keep the receipt, and claim it back. Do not let the airline's silence talk you into a £300 panic booking when a £90 room would have been reasonable care.

Booking on your own account, the geography is kind: Bloc is inside the South Terminal on the departures level, YOTELAIR (also inside South) sells cabins by the hour from a 4-hour minimum, which fits a 05:00 rebooked flight exactly, and a ring of shuttle-served hotels stands within minutes of both terminals. The full ladder, from the airport floor to a proper room, is on sleeping at Gatwick, and the Gatwick hotel guide compares the lot. If you would rather write the night off at home and come back for a rebooked morning flight, both terminals stay open landside around the clock, and the small-hours transport options (24-hour local buses, near-24-hour coaches) are on the transfers guide; the rest of the flight cluster lives on the flight information hub.