UK Snow: Flights Cancelled At Major Airports – What Are Your Rights?

Passengers across the UK face severe disruption as hundreds of flights are cancelled at major airports, including London Heathrow and Gatwick due to heavy snowfall and ice.

Liverpool John Lennon Airport closed its runway on Monday morning after a blanket of snow covered the tarmac.

EasyJet flights from the airport to Amsterdam and Belfast were grounded, while other flights to Dublin, Lithuania and Poland faced extended delays.

Passengers flying from Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport also faced severe disruption with 450 flights cancelled due to snow and icy weather conditions.

What are your rights?

If your flight is cancelled or delaye,d you might be entitled to the following:

Cancelled flights

If your flight is cancelled, your airline must give you either a:
full refund (including other flights from the airline that you won’t be able to use in the same booking, such as return flights)
replacement flight to your destination

If you don’t want a replacement flight and are part-way through your journey, you have the right to a flight back to the airport you originally departed from.

You can ask for a refund or a replacement flight at the airport or by making a claim with the airline later.

Delayed flights

Airlines must offer you care and assistance if your flight is delayed.

This kicks in at different times depending on the type of flight you have:

Your airline should offer you vouchers to cover the cost of ‘reasonable expenses’ like food and non-alcoholic drinks. If they don’t keep receipts of your expenses to claim back from the airline later on.

If your flight is delayed more than 5 hours, you don’t have to take it. Instead, you can claim a:

• full refund for the flight
• full refund for other flights in the same booking (e.g. if you have an onward or return flight)
• flight back to the airport you originally flew out from, if you’re part-way through the journey

How about compensation?

Generally speaking, it’s unlikely that you’ll get compensation for delays and cancellations caused by things like extreme weather (such as heavy snowfall and ice).

That’s because these types of situations are considered ‘extraordinary circumstances’, which are not the airline’s fault.

However, airlines must prove that the weather conditions were unforeseeable and not just inconvenient.

For example, a heavy snow during summer in Madrid would qualify as ‘extraordinary’ while snowfall in Switzerland during the winter would not.

Since snow and ice are common during the winter in the UK, most major airports have se-icing stations and snowploughs to manage conditions.

The table below shows some of the circumstances you might be able to claim compensation from the airline.

If you think your cancellation or delay might qualify, it’s worth submitting a claim through your airline’s website or by contacting their customer service department.

If your claim is rejected, you can contact the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to investigate further and take action if the airline isn’t following the rules.

Can you claim using travel insurance?

Travel insurance could help you to recover costs if your flight is delayed or cancelled.

Depending on your policy, you might get a fixed sum to cover additional costs you made during the delay for things like food, non-alcoholic drinks and phone calls.

If the delay or cancellation results in you needing to abandon your trip, you might also be able to claim the cost of things like accommodation, activities and car hire.

It’s important to check the terms of a travel policy before buying to avoid being caught out by unexpected events.