Originally Posted by
paulwuk
In my opinion, I would ask
- was the airline unable to prevent the disruption by cancelling another flight
- did the airline look after you quickly and well for the disruption
- did the airline do everything in their power to re-accommodate you quickly, regardless of cost
If the answer is no to any of those I'll take the compensation for the airline's business decision to cancel or delay my flight. The answer is always no. The long queues rather than a brief statement or leaflet saying "book your own room if you want, max £xxx per person". They don't often reroute onto non OW carriers, there's no 24/7 cancellation line, no rerouting website, and they often cancel flights because the flight is empty and they want to use the plane elsewhere.
Indeed and for domestic connections airlines rarely consider the rail options which are not subject to the same sort of delays and cancellations from weather related incidents. Ultimately it all comes down to how well did the airline manage the situation, most of us would tend not to enforce our strict legal rights to compensation if we feel we have been dealt with fairly and inconvenience has been minimised. Having the complete problem dumped in the hands of the passenger who is then forced to ensure long waits on the phone or deal with flaky websites is not treating customers fairly.
In most circumstances any cancellation apart from a full on longstanding airport closure is a commercial decision. The airline will cancel the flights which have the least overall impact upon it and which create the least overall additional liability (including hotel costs).
That is a sensible commercial decision but to pretend there is no commercial rationale behind such cancellations (as BA do and which features prominently in my own pending case) is disingenuous and somewhat insulting.