Avanti West Coast pays over £20m in delay refunds in three months, bill may top £70m this year

Intercity operator Avanti West Coast paid out more than £20m to passengers in just three months this summer in refunds for disrupted journeys on Britain's main intercity rail network.

Almost as much was paid in a four-week period to 25 July — £9.3m — as the company's annual profits for each of the past two years. It repaid a further £12.2m in the subsequent eight weeks.

The 'delay repay' compensation bill for slow-running or cancelled services has been rising across the railway network in recent years, according to official figures, with Avanti the biggest payer — although never before at this scale.

According to the most recent published figures from the Department for Transport (DfT), total passenger compensation across all operators rose to £150m in 2024-25, up 8 percent on the previous year, of which about 27 percent was Avanti's payouts of £40.5m.

Avanti paid out more than £50m in 2025-26, and is expected to pay out more than £70m this financial year.

Under the contracts that replaced the franchising system since the pandemic, operators' income comes from fees paid by the DfT, with the taxpayer taking any profit or loss from ticketing income or refunds.

Avanti is due to be taken into public ownership next year as part of Great British Railways.

As heatwaves hit the railway, fewer than half of Avanti trains ran on time in July, with passengers delayed by an average of 19 minutes, according to figures from the Office of Rail and Road. Its peak payout period also covered the incursion of a large herd of cows on the tracks for several hours one Tuesday.

Long-distance operators typically pay out the largest sums, with customers more likely to claim owing to the expense, and fares refunded in full when delays reach 60 minutes. Avanti and GWR are unusually generous in paying compensation after 15 minutes, when passengers are eligible for 25 percent of the fare paid.

GWR, which runs trains from Wales and the south-west to London, and LNER, which runs London-Scotland trains on the east coast mainline, were the next highest refunders in 2025, paying back £29.7m and £28m respectively.

Compensation claims across Great Britain's railway reached 9.1m in 2026, up almost 10 percent year on year, with 80 percent approved, according to the rail regulator. DfT research suggests about half of disrupted passengers claim, and most operators now resolve more than 99 percent of claims within 20 days.

An Avanti spokesperson apologised to customers affected by delays, said the company was working with industry partners to improve punctuality and reliability, and pointed to automatic delay repay for journeys delayed by 15 minutes or more. Avanti says it was directly responsible for only 23 percent of delays between May and August, with Network Rail, other operators or external factors such as trespassers responsible for the majority.

GWR said its higher payments were driven largely by repeated heatwaves, with prolonged unprecedented temperatures causing track defects, points failures, speed restrictions and train cooling issues. A DfT spokesperson said the government was tackling the root causes of disruption and would make claiming quicker and easier under Great British Railways through an easy-to-use service.