Originally Posted by
smgamache
Thank you - that's helpful. Does the ACT issue have to do with that flight directly, or is it also considered out of the airline's control if my specific flight was not impacted by ATC, but was delayed because that plane was subject to an ATC issue earlier in the day, under a different flight number, which put our flight behind? Also, is there any way to verify that it was indeed an ATC issue, and that the airline is not simply saying that to avoid claims? Looking at this particular flight on flightaware, it appears to be delayed much of the time, with an average delay of over an hour. That track record makes me suspicious of the explanation that we were given for the delay.
Compound delays are exempt or not based on whether airlines had any reasonable course of action to prevent them. In practice, that means that the reason is "reset" for every time a plane passes through a hub.
So that means if your plane was delayed for ATC reasons out of CDG, that amount of delay counts also out of ATH as for ATC reasons.
However if you are waiting in CDG for a plane which is coming in late from ATH for ATC reasons, this no longer exempts the airline from your delay because in a hub they can reasonably reshuffle which plane goes where and when.
perhaps easiest to do is to do a check on AirHelp or some other agency. You don't have to carry through, but they will tell you right away if they have in their DB that the plane was probably delayed by a legitimately unavoidable issue.
Originally Posted by
MalFr
although I have a voucher here following delays due to an ATC strike. If you don’t even ask, you don’t have a chance to get.
While the probability of getting compensation in cases when airline is not in the right is miniscule... it is not zero...