KLM problem on prior flight

saajan_12

Flight from Oslo to Amsterdam was delayed due to a problem on an earlier flight that day. Apparently there was a bird strike on an earlier flight TO AMS. However decided to continue with the flight AMS -> OSL, and then separately fly an engineer from the base in AMS to OSL to look at the airplane. 

I know ordinarily a bird strike may be considered an extraordinary cause, but in this case it was on an earlier leg, after which the plane was back at the airline's hub airport. Presumably they could have completed checks or switched out planes at AMS, thus reducing the delay to under the 2 hours. 

Original flight 9:20am. I was actually rebooked to the scheduled 2pm flight which I received confirmation of, only to be bumped again and back to the original flight number which actually departed at 4pm. 

Question: can I refute the extraordinary circumstances claim because the problem was 2 flight legs earlier and the impact on my flight could have been avoided? 

eskbanker

saajan_12 said:

Question: can I refute the extraordinary circumstances claim because the problem was 2 flight legs earlier and the impact on my flight could have been avoided? 

You can certainly put that credible argument forward - whether they'll accept it or not is another story, but you may have escalation rights to an ADR provider if the parties disagree.

saajan_12 said:

Original flight 9:20am. I was actually rebooked to the scheduled 2pm flight which I received confirmation of, only to be bumped again and back to the original flight number which actually departed at 4pm.

As an alternative to the above, if you were bumped off a confirmed booking, you may be able to claim under the denied boarding provisions of the regulations, which circumvent the discussion about extraordinary circumstances and require compensation to be paid regardless of root cause, although it would be halved if you arrived within two hours of your scheduled time (for that flight).