Originally Posted by
golfmad
I know that ordinarily a bird strike on one's own sector is deemed to be out of the control of the airline but from reading a corresponding thread on the AA forum it sounds like this excuse is negated if it would be reasonable to expect the airline to have another aircraft available for use as a replacement.
That's pretty much correct. My reading of recent cases is that bird strike can sometimes be deemed extraordinary circumstances on the flight in question, but the way an airline recovers from extraordinary circumstances such as bird strike is very much open to challenge. I don't think bird strike inbound to LGW, LCY or LHR gives BA a free card to get out of their responsibilities for departing passengers, and a case could be made from other airports too (JFK?) in terms of effective management of the problem. Moreover if it is a 50/50 argument, then the over riding provision of EC261 is passenger protection.