Your rights
Extraordinary circumstances: when may an airline really refuse?
Every rejected claim leans on the same phrase: 'extraordinary circumstances'. But that escape hatch is much narrower than airlines make it seem.
5 min readBy the Tomo editorial team
What the law means
The regulation only cancels compensation for circumstances beyond the airline's control that could not have been avoided with all reasonable measures. Two conditions, and the airline must prove both.
The Court of Justice reads this strictly. The burden of proof lies entirely with the airline; you need to prove nothing.
What does qualify
The valid cases are scarce and almost always external:
- Extreme weather that genuinely makes flying impossible
- Closed airspace or air traffic control restrictions
- Political unrest or security risks
- A bird strike
- Strikes outside the airline, such as security or air traffic control
What does not qualify
The list of rejection reasons shot down by the courts is longer than the valid list:
- Technical faults, even unexpected ones (Wallentin-Hermann ruling)
- A strike by the airline's own staff
- Crew illness or rostering problems
- The previous flight already being delayed ('rotational delay')
- Ordinary autumn or winter weather other flights simply flew through
Puncturing the weather excuse with METAR
Weather is the favourite excuse because it sounds unverifiable. It is not: every airport publishes an official METAR weather report every half hour with visibility, wind and precipitation.
We put every weather excuse next to the METAR data of exactly that moment at exactly that airport. If other aircraft simply flew and visibility was good, the excuse fails and we push the claim through.
Further reading
Explainer
Flight cancelled or delayed by a strike? What your compensation depends on
When a strike hits your flight, everything turns on WHO is striking. A walkout by the airline's own staff counts differently from an airport or air-traffic-control strike — and that difference is worth hundreds of euros.
6 min read →
Action plan
Flight cancelled, what now? The action plan for the first 60 minutes
Don't panic: what you sort out in the first hour decides how smoothly your trip continues and how strong your claim stands later.
5 min read →
Methodology
Did the airline blame the weather? This is how we check the evidence
The weather excuse is the most used rejection argument — and the most verifiable one. This is how we test it against official METAR observations.
6 min read →
Explainer
EUclaim went bankrupt — and relaunched under Yource. What changes for you?
Dutch claim agency EUclaim went bankrupt, but has been continued by Yource since late September 2026. What it means for your pending or new claim — and why your right to compensation stays yours either way.
6 min read →
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