Easyjet Flight Cancellation and Claiming Compensation

Chutzpah

Hi all, our flights home this weekend have been cancelled by the Portway strike in Portugal.

We've paid to reroute via another airline in a couple of days time and will be claiming that back. But I already see easyjet are saying to others that this is beyond their control so compensation will not be due.

Presumably this is a grey area, but as this isn't the only handling company that airlines can use at Portuguese airports is there any precedent for compensation still being due? I understand bad weather etc meaning it's truly beyond their control but if they subcontract out an operation such as this and can then use it as a shield I'm surprised they haven't subcontracted out the cabin crew and pilots....

GRoberts2022

Hi All,
Last Saturday (20th) my flight to Paphos from Manchester was delayed by 3 hrs and 52 minutes. 
On the Easyjet updates it said it was due to Air Traffic Control restrictions. 
But we were processed into the departure lounge; we then received a tannoy saying there were not enough cabin staff and that was causing the delay which lead to us missing our allocated air traffic control slot. 
Once we got onto the plane the pilot blamed weather over the Balkans.
This only appeared to affect Easyjet as TUI and Jet 2 still flew at the same time. It was noted by one of our fellow passengers that alot of Easyjet flights were delayed.
My initial interpretation was that this was a operational staff shortage which was not our problem.
On a Facebook group they suggested using a recent EASA publication but it appears that the UK no longer subject to these since leaving the EU.
Can we legally ask Easyjet to provide proof of why the delay happened?
Has anyone experienced this before?
Thanks for reading this.