Mind, standard operating procedure is for most if not all airlines to deny the compensation because of "unforeseeable circumstances".
Strike action because they don't pay their employees? Unforeseeable. The plane is broken? Unforeseeable. The airport cancelled the flight like it has been doing for the last 6 months? Unforeseeable.
Then you have to appeal to the regulator or small claims and most people just give up.
Sometimes they don't even refund your ticket after a cancellation and if you dare to chargeback they will prevent you from flying ever again.
Consumer rights are great, but often is hard to enforce them.
I've had plenty of success using the EU regulators to enforce 261/2004 compensation requests if an airline is not following the rules.
It can take a while for the regulator to get to your case, but it is only a 10-15 minute investment to find the relevant authority and to email to them with your information/circumstances. Then 2-4 months later the airline follows up to arrange payment. With budget flights the compensation can end up paying for multiple future flights.
My friend got this money from Aer Lingus for a flight that was delayed until the next day because of weather. They could have argued it was unforeseeable but they didn't. They just paid up. It doesn't always work this way.
The money was more than the flight was worth but the whole ordeal was terrible, literally every hotel in Dublin was booked out on every website (this wasn't the only flight cancelled, every one of them was) and she had to stay in this horrible dirty hostel. So it was kinda nice to get that money.
Strike action because they don't pay their employees? Unforeseeable. The plane is broken? Unforeseeable. The airport cancelled the flight like it has been doing for the last 6 months? Unforeseeable.
Then you have to appeal to the regulator or small claims and most people just give up.
Sometimes they don't even refund your ticket after a cancellation and if you dare to chargeback they will prevent you from flying ever again.
Consumer rights are great, but often is hard to enforce them.