Geoff,
I wasn't trying to have a dig at you. The EC and other politicians have spun the 'passenger rights' button so hard and have literally lied to their electorate. The posters that the EC had put up at airports all of Europe were wrong and they only fixed them once the ombudsman told them they had to. The problem with the posters? They said that compensation would be paid if your flight was delayed. Because of this passengers' expectations are very high, but regretfully the regulation doesn't actually give passengers everything they have been led to believe.
This is exactly my point and the reason for the original post. Just when does a flight become a cancellation rather than a reschedule? No one has yet managed to answer this question.
I don't suppose you will like the answer, but it is actually quite simple. It is when the airline says the flight is cancelled. There are no fixed times in the regulation, and as I pointed out earlier some aspects of the regulation suggest that delays longer (and even MUCH longer) than 24 hours were foreseen when it was drafted. If squeezy says the flight wasn't cancelled then (in respect of the Regulation, as written) then it wasn't.
Stick with the AUC though. These guys are actually quite good. It probably won't come as a surprise that the Brown Government wants to put the AUC out of business and transfer the responsibility to the some other guys that currently deal with complaints against the bus companies and the railroads. Good luck to everyone then.