And another add:

There are always "get out clauses" for carriers, such as:

As under the Montreal Convention, obligations on operating
air carriers should be limited or excluded in cases
where an event has been caused by extraordinary
circumstances which could not have been avoided even
if all reasonable measures had been taken. Such circumstances
may, in particular, occur in cases of political
instability, meteorological conditions incompatible with
the operation of the flight concerned, security risks,
unexpected flight safety shortcomings and strikes that
affect the operation of an operating air carrier.

and

Extraordinary circumstances should be deemed to exist
where the impact of an air traffic management decision
in relation to a particular aircraft on a particular day
gives rise to a long delay, an overnight delay, or the
cancellation of one or more flights by that aircraft, even
though all reasonable measures had been taken by the
air carrier concerned to avoid the delays or cancellations.

My case was won by not quoting a single piece of legislation. Sometimes District Judges prefer that. Start quoting legislation and you may be in trouble, especially if you're not legally trained which these District Judges are
Mark

Mark

The 'extraordinary circumstances' Recitals relate specifically to the derogation stated in Article 5.3 under Cancellations. Since the OP is not claiming under this Article, these derogations do not apply to Article 10.

In your own case, since you were claiming under general Contract Law rather than specifically under EC 261/2004 then I agree with the DJ in your case - the burden of proof is on the claimant to prove their case.

Under EC 261/2004 the reverse burden of proof applies as the Regulation imposes the Statutes absolutely unless any derogation from the right to compensation or redress is specified in the Regulation. That derogation only exists in Article 5.3, specifically under Cancellations and in that Article the passenger has an absolute entitlement to the redress stated unless the carrier can prove 'that the cancellation is caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken'. This matter, however, is not at issue in this case.

Hi,
We had the same thing on our outbound flight to Sanford & were only informed late afternoon before our flight. After visiting the First Choice shop today, we have received a £150 refund for the loss of the premium cabin. I did think about using EC 261/2004 but after reading through, I was worried that because it was part of our package, they could say the flight component was a very low price, so 75% of that could have meant not as much of a refund.
We also submitted a complaint about all the toilets malfunctioning on our inbound flight. I'm hoping they get that other plane fixed soon