Extraordinary Circumstances

Airlines do not have to pay compensation for a cancelled or heavily delayed flight if the disruption was caused by 'extraordinary circumstances' — a defined exception under the UK's retained version of Regulation 261/2004. The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the UK regulator for air passenger rights, defines the concept as 'situations where delays or cancellations have been caused by things that are not the responsibility of the airline.' The burden is on the airline to establish that the exception applies, not on the passenger to disprove it.

The CAA sets out the main categories of event likely to qualify: weather conditions incompatible with the safe operation of the flight, strikes unrelated to the airline itself (such as by airport staff, ground handlers, air traffic control or border force), acts of terrorism or sabotage, security risks, political or civil unrest, and hidden manufacturing defects serious enough to trigger a manufacturer's fleet-wide recall.

Ordinary technical faults are treated very differently. The CAA's guidance is explicit that standard technical problems are not extraordinary circumstances, reflecting the position confirmed by the courts, and carves out only two narrow exceptions within that category: hidden manufacturing defects, and damage to an aircraft caused by sabotage or terrorism. A routine mechanical failure — even one that could not have been predicted from a particular aircraft's maintenance history — is treated as an inherent business risk that the airline must bear, rather than something exceptional enough to excuse it from paying compensation.