Simon Calder's Holiday Helpdesk: Do we still have time to claim after suffering 24-hour flight delay two years ago?

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Q. Two years ago we had a 24-hour delay on returning from Dominican Republic. We emailed Thomson but they did not offer any compensation. Have we still time to claim? I do not have any paperwork but have entry and exit date-stamps in my passport to show we left after 15 days.

Linda Burgess

A. Thanks to a court judgement late last year, claims for flight delays of three hours or more can go back six years, to 2007. The law applies to all flights operated by EU-based airlines, so you should be able to claim – unless Thomson Airways can demonstrate there were no “extraordinary circumstances” that it could not have anticipated. The company supplies a standard form for delayed passengers to complete. It stresses that claimants must supply the original flight tickets, but when I took it up with the company, it confirmed that other forms of proof are acceptable.

The CAA produces a useful guide here, including a standard letter to make it easier: bit.ly/CAAhelp

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