Your refund rights if your flight is cancelled or delayed because of the snow
Passengers due to fly in the coming weeks should know their rights as the risk of snow cancellations increases sharply.
An icy front has led to serious snowfall across parts of Britain overnight, leading to school closures and widespread joy among the country's children. It also spells travel disruption as roads ice over and train lines come under risk of being snowed under.
The Met Office says heavy snow is possible across northern areas today, especially in Scotland and overnight in Northern Ireland. The rest of the country can expect a cold, dry day ahead of a widespread, severe frost in the evening. Disruption is expected on South Western Railway and ScotRail today due to the weather.
So far this morning airports are running as normal, but there is certainly a chance that icy runways or heavy snow could lead to delays or cancellations as the week and cold weather goes on. Snow has fallen on the runway at Manchester Airport but the travel hub continues to operate smoothly.
Manchester received a solid blanketing last night (Ioannis Alexopoulos/LNP)A livestream of Manchester Airport shows snow on the tarmac but flights continuing to take-off and land this morning.
Gales, snow and rain to batter country today with 80mph wind gusts
If you find your flight does get cancelled because of snow or other forms of weather, then the good news is you have the legal right to either a full refund - including other flights from the airline that you won’t use in the same booking such as onward or return flights - or a replacement flight to get you to your destination.
If you’re part-way through a journey and you don’t want a replacement flight, you also have a right to a flight back to the airport you originally departed from. It is worth asking for a refund or replacement at the airport if you can. If not, you can claim from the airline later, although this may take some time on the phone and see you incur call charges.
The bad news is that despite the potentially considerable inconvenience of having a flight cancelled, you're unlikely to get any compensation. That is because airlines are not required to pay compensation for delays or cancellations caused by extraordinary events outside of their control.
Even though it does snow in the UK every now and again, it is considered a rare enough event to fall outside of the compensation law's definition. If you live in a part of the UK such as northern Scotland where a blanketing is a little less rare, you may have more luck arguing your case.
“It’s a common misconception that bad weather is always an extraordinary circumstance, which would stop the airlines having to pay compensation, Coby Benson, flight delay compensation solicitor at Bott and Co, said. "However, delays caused by weather conditions that are not considered ‘freakish’ or ‘wholly exceptional’ are indeed covered by the regulation and many passengers could be owed compensation of up to £520 each."
The amount of compensation you are entitled to varies depending on the length of the delay and the journey.
On Sunday the Met Office issued the latest warnings with concern more than 20cm of snow - nearly eight inches - is to build-up across several locations, notably in Strathclyde, by Thursday afternoon.
Met Office forecaster Greg Dewhurst told the Mirror it will be very cold with temperatures dropping as low as -15C today and a build up of snow could see as much as 50 centimetres fall in parts of Scotland.
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