Excuses that have lost in court
- • Technical faults. The classic. Courts settled this years ago: keeping aircraft airworthy is the airline's ordinary business, so breakdowns, warning lights and parts found worn during checks are within its control, however unexpected. Only genuinely exceptional cases, like a hidden manufacturing defect grounding a whole fleet, or sabotage, qualify.
- • The airline's own staff striking. A strike by the airline's pilots or cabin crew is an internal labour dispute, ruled within its control. Wildcat strikes triggered by the airline's own restructuring announcement: same result.
- • "The inbound aircraft arrived late." Not a defence in itself. The airline has to show the original cause of the knock-on was extraordinary, and that it took reasonable measures to break the chain, like using a spare aircraft.
- • Crew out of hours, crew sickness, staffing gaps. Rostering resilience is the airline's job.
- • A bit of bad weather. Weather only counts when it actually prevented safe operation of your flight. If other airlines were landing on the same runway all afternoon, "weather" is a label, not a defence.
Excuses that genuinely hold
- • Severe weather that closed the airport or grounded operations across the board
- • Air traffic control restrictions and airspace closures
- • Strikes by airport staff, baggage handlers or ATC, people the airline doesn't employ
- • Security threats, medical emergencies and diversions, bird strikes
- • Political instability or official travel restrictions
Even then there's a second test: the airline must show it took all reasonable measures to avoid the delay anyway. An ATC restriction that cost 40 minutes doesn't excuse a 5-hour delay if the other 4 hours were the airline scrambling for a crew.
When the excuse holds, they still owe you this
"Extraordinary circumstances" cancels the cash compensation. It does not cancel anything else, and this is the part airlines rarely mention. Whatever caused the delay, once you are waiting the airline has to look after you, and if it does not, it has to pay back what you spent doing it yourself.
- • Food and drink, in proportion to how long you are stuck. Usually vouchers at the gate; if nobody hands them out, buy your own.
- • A hotel and the transport to it if you are delayed overnight. Not a camp bed in the terminal.
- • Your money back for anything you arranged yourself because they did not. Keep every receipt, and keep them reasonable: a Premier Inn gets reimbursed, a suite argues.
- • On a cancellation, a refund or a seat on another flight — your choice, not theirs. Taking the refund does not forfeit the care you were already owed.
- • Two phone calls or emails, which sounds quaint and is still in the regulation.
None of this depends on whose fault it was. That is the whole point of it: the compensation rules ask who caused the delay, the care rules only ask how long you have been sitting there.
Air traffic control failures
The UK's air traffic control system, run by NATS, failed on 8 September 2026 and again on 21 September. Both times thousands of flights were delayed or cancelled, and both times the answer on compensation is the same one the regulator gave after the first: the CAA said disruption from the NATS outage is likely to count as extraordinary circumstances, so passengers are unlikely to be owed compensation for it.
Two things worth knowing beyond that. The regulator said the same applies to the knock-on delays over the following days, so a flight disrupted on the Tuesday by Monday's failure is in the same position. And its view is guidance, not a ruling — the CAA says plainly that a passenger who disagrees can still claim, including through the courts. What is not in doubt is the care above: the CAA used the same statement to remind airlines they must feed you, house you overnight and reimburse what you spend when they do not.
The burden of proof is theirs, not yours
You do not have to prove the delay was the airline's fault. The airline has to prove it wasn't, with evidence: weather reports for the actual airport at the actual time, ATC slot messages, technical logs. A refusal email that just asserts "extraordinary circumstances" with nothing behind it is a first offer, not a verdict. Reply asking for the specific cause and the evidence. A surprising number of refusals fold at that first push-back.
How to challenge a refusal
- • Check what actually happened: flight-tracking history shows whether other flights departed around yours, and where your aircraft had been that day. A "weather" delay that started three rotations earlier is a knock-on, not weather.
- • Ask the airline in writing for the specific cause and supporting evidence.
- • Still refused? Escalate to the relevant aviation dispute scheme or ombudsman, or hand it to a claims firm. They take a cut, but they know exactly which excuses collapse under scrutiny, and they'll take the airline to court when stonewalled. These weather-that-wasn't arguments are precisely the cases they win.