Thanks a lot for your valuable opinions.

I believe we have exhausted the topic of whether or not the airline could have mitigated the risk. I generally agree with you that a chance of foreseeing it was low.

On the other hand, the EC 261/2004 is there to protect the customers in the first place. As a customer, I can reasonably expect the airline to bring me from A to B safe and on time. Inability to do so by a marging considered significant by law entitles the customer for compensation.

And here we reach a sweet spot. The „accident” happens because of the faulty update. We have tools like QA environments, testing, qualified supervision etc to ensure it does not happen. Negligence to deliver a quality product and cause a hot mess in Schiphol should be compensated by ensuring the reestablishment of the customer satisfaction. The airline is merely an intermediary here, because as a customer I have zero control over these procedures while Crowdstrike has contractual obligations towards its customers.

In case this is considered a force majeure, we can attribute 99% of the cases to force majeure. Can a strike of the crew be condired a firce majeure? Well, it would be tough for them to foresee and prevent. In case the water is not brought on board and the flight is late - is it a force majeure? Why not? Everything they could not reasonably prevent should be considered a force majeure. Why to bother introducing such law in the first place then?

I agree this is all about interpretation. But where we differ in judgement is whether or not the system glitch could have been prevented. I believe that as a customer I should reasonably expect the testing procedures to work. Not only for the airlines, but for food, utilities, weapons, cars and other industries.