A cancelation that took off in the end!

eskbanker

zjoliveira said:
The issue is that I only found out that the flight wasn't cancelled when I checked Flight Tracker and saw the flight had departed.

zjoliveira said:
I did receive a message via their app to go to "Gate 14" on the day. I assume this is likely to be because the flight was still operating with passengers?

Surely the boarding message on the day denoted that the flight had been reinstated?

zjoliveira said:
I know for a fact that the flight went from London to Helsinki as intended. Up until then, I had received an email saying the flight had been cancelled and was reassured multiple times via their chat that there would be no flight on that day.

Why would you keep asking them about the cancellation once you'd been informed of it?  Did they definitely not notify you of the apparent reversal of the cancellation?

Anyway, not trying to catch you out here, just trying to understand exactly what happened and when - as above I'm not sure that the denied boarding argument will work if you (understandably) didn't turn up but if they're insisting that flight cancellation (if that's what they're still asserting) was due to exceptional circumstances then it seems that denial of boarding is all you have left to try.

In terms of supporting evidence, I suspect that you'll struggle to find anything definitive about what happened, especially if this was back in the summer when the Heathrow restrictions were most prevalent - the airline would need to produce evidence if you took them to small claims, so it's just a case of whether you feel you have a strong enough case to call their bluff....