I’d honestly push this further.
Yes, fog is extraordinary. No argument there. But EU261 doesn’t just stop at “bad weather happened.” The airline also has to show they did everything reasonable to avoid or reduce the delay.
In your case the aircraft was already at Otopeni overnight. Other Ryanair 737s were departing from Otopeni mid morning. Visibility improved before noon. Yet your flight only left at 13:15 and arrived 4h25 late.
That starts to look less like pure weather and more like operational knock on effects or crew/rotation issues. And those are usually not extraordinary.
The key question is: once the plane was sitting at Otopeni and the weather improved, what exactly prevented an earlier departure? If they just say “previous sectors affected,” that can be too vague. They normally need to prove the specific aircraft and rotation were directly impacted in a way they couldn’t reasonably avoid.
I’d escalate to ADR. Worst case they confirm Ryanair’s position. But from what you described, it doesn’t sound completely clear cut.
Sometimes airlines lean heavily on the weather excuse and hope people don’t challenge it.
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