To whom it may concern, On June 1st, I was flying from Sydney, all the way to Vilnius. The flights were: Sydney - Singapore Singapore - Copenhagen Copenhagen - Vilnius The last leg of the flight was cancelled and I was redirected with the following: Copenhagen - Stokholm Stokholm - Riga Riga - Vilnius. I was supposed to land in Vilnius at around 10:30 - 11:00 AM. I have reached home at around 8 PM. I have filed a compensation request for cancelled flight, however, my claim was denied. The explanation for cancelled flight was a sudden illness of a crew member. This circumstance was called "extra-ordinary" by the airlines and hence my claim was denied as to their claim: "A sudden illness of a crew member is as you know nothing we can foresee. Therfore we were not prepared with extra crew and had to cancel the flight." As the sentence above (quote from their response to me) - the airline was not prepared for managing their capacity under these circumstances. Whereas, I do agree that a sudden illness of a crew member cannot be predicted by 100%, there are ways to prepare and manage the capacity so that the clients would not, or be merely affected by fluctuation in task force. I manage a team myself, and I know that people get sick. When people get sick - there are certain activities that management can do to assure flawless execution of services provided. E.g. There are companies who have staff "on call" - in case something unforeseen happens, so these people would be able to show up at work within reasonable amount of time and clients would experience little to no inconvenience. With the above said, I believe that lack of structure in managing the capacity should not affect my arrival time by 8-9 hours and 2 additional flights. As it was a very long and tiring journey - I believe that I am entitled to a compensation under European Union directives, and I cannot see "sickness of staff member" as extraordinary circumstance that cannot be managed. As per advise by SAS ("If you are not satisfied with SAS final decision in this case, you can proceed to the Consumer Complaints Board or to court. SAS will not take any further action in the matter.") - I am failing this complaint. Respectfully, Ruta Zabielaite Case number for complaint: 1424948 Air booking number T5748N