Originally Posted by
Tumbleweed666
According to the BBC just now that's not correct, as its "an act of God", all they are obliged to do is reschedule, or refund. They are not (apparently) obligated at all to offer hotels, food and so forth.
No one knows, but even if it does open up full again there is bound to be a huge amount of disruption over the next couple of days just down to planes and staff being out of position etc.
No
they'll do their best, I should think, but the airport hotels will be filling up pretty fast
Here are the bits of the EU regs that get them off the hook:
(14) 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.
(15) 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.