Flight Delays or Cancellations Due To Bad Weather

Claiming Compensation for Delays due to Severe Weather

Bad weather conditions have an immense impact on safe flight operations. Airlines can thus deny compensation claims for flight delays or cancellations due to severe weather conditions since the safety factor obviously cannot be compromised.

However, usual weather conditions at any airport cannot be considered an “extraordinary” situation, thus cancellations or delays are not justified in such cases.

The airlines need to take the weather forecast into account before making flight schedules. In other words, they should prudently decide in advance whether they wish to allow the aircraft to fly to and from certain airports, given the weather conditions expected to be prevalent there.

The final judgement of extraordinary circumstances remains a grey area. The comprehensive overview of several court decisions and rulings on the matter can be referred to in ClaimFlights free database to have a vivid understanding of the complexities involved in the matter.

Is Severe Weather considered as an Extraordinary Circumstances?

The interpretation of extremely bad weather conditions as extraordinary circumstances sounds reasonable. Many recent court decisions have set rigid parameters which should be looked into carefully before concluding that bad weather conditions were an “Act of God”.

Now, if any airline could operate any flight to or from the airport in the prevalent bad weather conditions, then every airline is expected to operate the flight for their passengers by taking equal measures.

It’s the airline’s responsibility to ensure the safety of the aircraft to and fro by taking the weather forecast into consideration.

However, if no airline could operate any flight from the airport due to adverse weather conditions, then the compensation claims for flight delays or cancellations can be denied by the airlines.

The European Union laws covering air passenger rights and the US Federal laws for the same objective provide for adequate compensation to the passengers for flight delays or cancellations.

Any air passenger traveling within or from EU nations can claim compensation for flight delays or cancellations within the framework provided by EC Regulation 261/2004. All air passengers, including US citizens traveling within or from Europe, can claim compensation in the event of delays within the definition of the EU 261/2004.

According to EC 261/2004, the extraordinary conditions which may lead to the denial of compensation claims by airlines include poor weather conditions that bring a halt to safe operations of flights, political instability, strikes, and security risks.

Further, if bad weather conditions cause one particular flight to be delayed it causes a domino effect on other flights. It could be possible to claim compensation for the delay of the later flight.

EU Air Passenger Rights in conformity with EC Regulation 261/2004

The EC Regulation 261/2004 ensures that all air passengers in the EU jurisdiction are entitled to claim between 250 Euros to 600 Euros for flight delays or cancellations due to normal weather.

US citizens can also benefit equally from these provisions. The amount of claim compensation that can be made by any air passenger for delayed or canceled flights is dependent on the distance of travel which can be seen from the table below:

*complex rules apply to canceled flights

Passenger Rights in case of Delays due to Bad Weather

Regardless of whether or not the flight delay was caused by an “Act of God” if the delay due to bad weather is of around two hours or more passengers are entitled.

• Hotel stay in case passengers need to stay overnight
• Meals in relation to the waiting time
• Two telephone calls/email messages/fax/telex
• Transportation for transit passengers between the hotel and the airport

Flight Compensation Calculator

We at ClaimFlights help EU air passengers to claim compensation for flight delays or cancellations. Following your delayed or canceled flight (due to bad weather) you can use the ClaimsFlights flight compensation calculator to find out exactly how much compensation you are entitled to claim.

It will be important to clarify here that we undertake claim services for the flights operating in EU skies and jurisdiction only. All air passengers, including those from the US, traveling in EU jurisdiction, can use our services.