How can we find weather and air traffic control reports for 24th and 25th August 2023?
EasyJet is fobbing off my son whose flight from London Gatwick to Valencia, EZY8009, 06.15 scheduled departure, was cancelled at short notice, with easyJet now say they won’t pay £220 per passenger compensation as the cancellation was due to weather and European air traffic control issues. We cannot for the life of us find out where we would get records for weather and air traffic control delays.
Here is a link to historical weather data. Keep in mind that cancellations due to weather may be caused by poor weather anywhere along the assigned aircraft’s route or the assigned crew’s route prior to arrival at Gatwick. On top of that issues at Euro Control may be a result of traffic or weather anywhere along the routes that arriving aircraft may take including North America, Asia, …
The bottom line is that the weather may be clear and sunny at Gatwick, but a flight can still be cancelled due to weather.
My experience is a bit dated (2019, pre-full-on-Brexit), so it may not be completely relevant. The UK CAA had an ombudsman who would field complaints when travellers felt an airline was wrong in denying compensation. I, too, got fobbed off with the weather excuse so I filled out a form on the CAA website providing details and my reasoning why the airline was wrong. It took ~5 months but I eventually got an e-mail saying something like “the airline will be contacting you shortly to arrange compensation payment”. Full marks to the CAA in my book.
The current CAA site does keep a non-exhaustive list of “extraordinary events” which would preclude compensation. I don’t see 24-25 August on the list, so maybe that is a starting point for you, Good luck.
