Airline strike compensation
Whether a strike costs the airline money depends entirely on who was striking. Its own crew is ordinary business and compensation is owed. Air traffic control or airport security is outside its control, and then only care and re-routing are owed, not the fixed sum.
Work out what your flight is owed →The distinction that decides it
Airlines answer a strike claim with one word — “strike” — as though the word alone were a defence. It is not. Article 5(3) excuses an airline only where the cause was an extraordinary circumstance, and a strike by the carrier's own staff is not one.
In Krüsemann v TUIfly (C-195/17) the Court of Justice looked at a wildcat sickout that followed a restructuring announcement, and held that industrial action among a carrier's own personnel is part of the normal exercise of its activity. Restructuring, pay disputes and rostering are business decisions; the friction they cause belongs to the business.
Who was striking — a practical table
| Striking party | Compensation |
|---|---|
| Pilots employed by the airline | Owed |
| Cabin crew employed by the airline | Owed |
| The airline's own ground staff | Owed |
| Air traffic control | Usually not — outside the airline |
| Airport security or customs | Usually not |
| A third-party ground handling firm | Contested — ask who employs them |
| A general or national strike | Usually not |
The contested row is worth pushing on. If handling is outsourced but the airline chose the contractor and manages the contract, the argument that it was wholly outside its control is weaker than the airline will claim.
What to write when they say “strike”
One paragraph, and it changes the conversation:
Please confirm which body was taking industrial action on the date of my flight, and whether any of those workers were employed by you. If they were, I refer you to Krüsemann v TUIfly (C-195/17), in which the Court of Justice held that a strike among a carrier's own personnel is not an extraordinary circumstance within Article 5(3).
Airlines answer template letters with templates. A named judgment and a specific question moves the file to somebody who reads.
Even when no compensation is owed
An external strike removes the fixed compensation and nothing else. The airline still owes you duty of care — meals, and a hotel with transport if you are stuck overnight — and still owes you re-routing or a full refund, your choice. Those survive every extraordinary circumstance there is.
Questions
Is a strike an extraordinary circumstance?
Only when the strikers are outside the airline. A strike by the carrier's own pilots or cabin crew is not extraordinary, following Krüsemann v TUIfly (C-195/17), so compensation is owed.
The airline says a strike was announced in advance — does that change anything?
Notice may help the airline argue it took reasonable measures, but it does not convert its own crew's strike into an extraordinary circumstance. The category is decided by who struck.
What if I was told more than two weeks before?
Then no compensation is due for a cancellation regardless of cause — that is the fourteen-day rule in Article 5(1)(c), not a strike rule.