Apologies for an off-topic contribution but figured the most knowledgeable people are in this thread. I'm currently having an ongoing fight with SWISS about an overnight delay in July of this year. Routing BEG-ZRH-LCY (as no oneworld option to BEG!)- there was a small weather delay in BEG but after a scramble through the bowels of the E gates at Zurich, we were at the gate in advance of the scheduled boarding time to be informed that the flight was cancelled, due to a "technical issue with the aircraft".
We had a 3 hour queue to get a hotel voucher and refreshments, and I was lucky enough to get rebooked on a direct BA flight to LHR (the next day) over the phone whilst stood in the queue- missing out on 1 & 2 stop routings the majority of the people around us got when they hit the front of the queue. So whilst it was rubbish at the time, I'm pretty satisfied that SWISS met the accommodation part of EC261.
However, on return to the UK, I thought I had some nailed on EC261 delay compensations (arrived 2pm on Monday 16th July at LHR rather than 6pm on Sunday 15th July at LCY) but SWISS are repeatedly denying compensation, stating that the aircraft required a 'hard landing check' on arrival at ZRH, and this counts as extraordinary circumstances.
Your file has been reviewed and as advised previously, your flight was cancelled due to a hard landing check. An aircraft is a complex, mechanical and electronic system, whose flawless performance is of utmost priority for SWISS. Nevertheless, unforeseeable and unavoidable defects sometimes occur.
As such circumstances are considered extraordinary; we regret to inform you that you are not eligible for financial compensation.
Although I well understand your irritation in view of your experience, I hope you understand that I cannot grant a favorable to your request for the reasons explained.
I argue that given other flights of the same types of aircraft (CS100) departed in a similar time frame, this was a commercial decision to not run the LCY flight that evening (as opposed to cancelling another flight), and is thus compensation-eligible.
Am I barking up the wrong tree here? Or what's the best route to progress, MCOL?