Originally Posted by
ianj844
As I've had it explained to me by AA before the longest delay reason takes precedence regarding compensation. So for example if you have a 2 hour delay total. 1.5 hours cause of Weather and .5 hours cause of an MX issue the delay is deemed a weather delay as that was the cause for the majority of the delay. . . .
I have also been given this explanation.
Originally Posted by
ryan182
thats nonsense, the flight was ready to push, had there not been a maintenance issue it would have taken off - ergo the cancelation was due to maintenance. Period.
I agree with you that it makes little sense. If the mechanical delay is later in the chain of events, and if I had not missed a connection (or otherwise have been forced to overnight somewhere) but for the mechanical delay, I would say AA is at fault. In other words, the mechanical delay interrupts the chain of causation. In your case, it seems even clearer—the flight would not have been cancelled had there not been the mechanical issue.
That said, nowadays I rely on trip delay insurance through credit cards, rather than AA, to compensate me for incidentals like hotels, food, transportation, etc., during delays.