“Your flight was affected by extraordinary circumstances, therefore no compensation is payable.” Airlines send this sentence out by the thousand. Sometimes it is legally sound. Very often it rests on a stretched reading of Article 5(3) of Regulation EC 261/2004. Here is how to tell the difference — and what evidence actually moves a claim forward.
What Article 5(3) actually requires
An air carrier is not obliged to pay compensation if it can prove that the cancellation or long delay was caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken.
That means three cumulative conditions:
- the event must be outside the airline's normal activity and beyond its actual control;
- there must be a direct causal link with the disruption of your specific flight;
- the airline must show it took all reasonable measures to limit the consequences.
Crucially, the burden of proof lies with the airline, not with you. A one-line email saying “weather” or “operational reasons” is an assertion, not evidence.
Refusals that are usually legitimate
EU case law recognises a fairly narrow list of genuine extraordinary circumstances:
- severe weather genuinely incompatible with safe operation (thunderstorms, dense fog, snow closing the runway);
- air traffic management decisions, airspace restrictions, airport closures;
- third-party strikes: air traffic controllers, airport handling staff, security screeners;
- bird strikes (Pešková, C-315/15);
- fuel spilled on a runway not originating from the carrier's own fleet (Moens, C-159/18);
- disruptive passengers endangering flight safety (TAP, C-74/19);
- security threats, political instability, bomb alerts.
Even then, the second limb still applies. A morning thunderstorm does not automatically explain a 9 p.m. cancellation.
The refusals that most often fail
This is where the majority of contestable cases sit. The following are not extraordinary circumstances:
- ordinary technical faults. Wallentin-Hermann (C-549/07) and van der Lans (C-257/14) settled the point: an unexpected component failure not revealed by routine maintenance remains inherent in the normal exercise of an air carrier's activity. Hydraulics, APU, landing gear, sensors, cargo doors — all challengeable;
- strikes by the airline's own staff called by a union within normal collective bargaining (Airhelp v SAS, C-28/20), and “wildcat” strikes following a restructuring announcement (Krüsemann, C-195/17);
- overbooking and commercial rescheduling of the flight programme;
- crew unavailability or duty-time limits caused by tight rostering;
- internal IT failures and ground-handling disorganisation;
- vague “operational reasons”: congestion, “late arrival of the aircraft” with no proven external cause.
The knock-on delay trap
An airline may rely on an extraordinary circumstance that occurred on an earlier rotation of the same aircraft. But it must then prove the full causal chain and show the delay could not be absorbed. The Court held in Eglītis (C-294/10) that a diligent carrier builds a reasonable buffer into its schedule. The earlier in the day the alleged event occurred, the weaker the refusal becomes.
Reasonable measures: the second battleground
Even where the triggering event is genuinely external, the airline must have exhausted the options: spare aircraft, standby crew, re-routing including on another carrier's flight, or via a nearby airport. TAP (C-74/19) confirms the carrier must offer the re-routing possibilities available to it, unless no seats exist or the alternative would take an unreasonable time. If you were rebooked 48 hours later while seats were available the same day, the “reasonable measures” defence collapses.
What you keep regardless
Extraordinary circumstances only remove the fixed compensation. They do not remove:
- the duty of care: refreshments, meals, hotel accommodation and transfers where an overnight stay is needed;
- the choice between a full refund and re-routing under comparable conditions;
- the right to receive written information about your rights.
How to challenge a refusal: five practical steps
- Ask for the precise reason in writing: nature of the event, time, and the aircraft registration involved.
- Sanity-check it: did other flights depart the same airport at the same time? A closed airport stops all traffic, not one departure.
- Pull the weather record: aviation observations (METAR/TAF) are public and archived by the hour.
- Rebuild the aircraft's day using flight-tracking data to test any knock-on delay argument.
- Keep everything: boarding pass, emails, app screenshots, gate announcements, photos of departure boards.
Amounts and time limits
Compensation is due where you arrive at your final destination 3 hours or more late, where a cancellation was notified less than 14 days before departure, or in cases of denied boarding. The scale is €250 up to 1,500 km, €400 for intra-EU flights over 1,500 km and other flights between 1,500 and 3,500 km, and €600 for flights over 3,500 km outside the EU. Where re-routing keeps the delay short, the amount may be halved. Depending on applicable time limits, you can generally look back up to 3 years.
A refusal citing extraordinary circumstances is a position the airline must be able to justify — not the end of the conversation. At Airlines Quick Refund we review the stated cause, cross-check it against flight and weather data, and handle the out-of-court claim with the carrier. Our fee is 35% on success only: no result, no charge.
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