Originally Posted by Thysk

Airlines are not responsible for things out of their control, like weather, under EC261. The only thing they have to do in that scenario, is provide food&water if the delay is more than 2 hours, which I think is the correct thing to do (as airport food is ridiculously expensive).
EC261 just holds airlines responsible if they mess up (delaying/cancelling flights to either improve load capacity or due to poor maintenance, for example). Can you imagine how fast AA would've budged if EC261 was in play when they were fighting their mechanics (in court)? That stuff would've been solved within days, causing far less customers to experience delays, instead of the situation and results that we've seen.