Originally Posted by
bilancarbone
Yes, I need to find a claim agency that does not run an automatic weather check to sort cases.
Weather can indeed be evaluated as exceptional for this flight (although one may make the case that snow is not that uncommon at this time of the year at AMS, and the airlines have to take it into account when planning their flights), but did not cause the delay as, at the gate, the aircraft did not need deicing (it has just landed from another rotation). The delay was caused by poor cargo management, and the 2 hours spent at the gate offloading the cargo caused the need for deicing.
If I understand the timeline correctly, the delay in normal circumstances would have been approx. 2 hours, which would not qualify for EU compensation. On top of that, your delay was extended because of severe weather conditions, which pushed it through the 3h threshold for compensation. To me that sounds like KL has a legitimate case of refusing the compensation based on severe weather and the AF employee granting the compensation mistakenly only took the cargo issue into account..
Which doesn't mean that you cannot ask a claim agency to give it a try..