Delay flight compensation

[LaCerbiatta]

Our flight coming back from Portugal to the UK in August was delayed by over 3h and we qualify for the airline compensation. Put the request in through Ryanair and received immediate response saying the delay was due to air traffic control restrictions, not the airline fault, so they wouldn't pay.

Knowing Ryanair my first instinct was thinking that this is their standard response which they always try out first, but maybe I'm being unfair! Has anyone received compensation from them? Is it worth pursuing? Or would they risk their reputation but lying to customers to get out of paying?

And is there maybe a way of checking if indeed there were air traffic restriction in place on that day? I've tried googling but couldn't find anything.

Thanks so much in advance for any help!

Hiya
if you Google eu flight compensation you’ll get a load of info but essentially see below ( I think this applies to coming back as both legs of the journey are counted as separate events)
Delay

If your flight is delayed at departure, you have the right to assistance, to reimbursement and a return flight, depending on the duration of the delay and the distance of the flight.

If you arrived at your final destination with a delay of more than 3 hours, you are entitled to compensation, unless the delay was due to extraordinary circumstances. The airline has to prove this by providing, for example, extracts from logbooks or incident reports. The air carrier should give this evidence to the relevant national enforcement body as well as to the passengers concerned in line with national provisions on access to documents.

We were delayed for 7 hours. Ryanair did the "not our fault, air traffic control restrictions" thing - what actually happened is that their aircraft kept missing their slots and had to wait for new ones to be available.

Ryanair refused compensation and I had to go through the dispute resolution body Aviation ADC, who do not charge, unlike claims firms.

It took a year, and only one of the two passengers was compensated.

(Obviously never flying with Ryanair again.)