27 June 2024 , 16:17
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EasyJet has axed a spate of flights - plunging families' summer holidays into chaos.
Multiple journeys from Edinburgh and Glasgow Airports have been cancelled with little notice by the budget airline. Tourists, though, turned up at these hubs to check in but were sent home, it is thought. Some told the Mirror booking alternative flights has, for now at least, cost them hundreds of pounds.
Sarah Machete was heading to Edinburgh Airport to fly to Naples for her dream wedding when she received a message to say her flight had been cancelled. The bride slammed the airline after she was only offered alternative flights for two days later.
She told Daily Record: "I was just about to leave for our flight to Naples for our wedding. Then I got a message to say our flight had been cancelled. The only option I've been given is Saturday - in two days."
A second passenger, who was booked on the same flight, said he too had lost two days of his holiday. Ian wrote on X, formally known as Twitter: "easyJet have cancelled our flight from Edinburgh to Naples and rebooked us so we lose nearly two days of our holiday. Why are we not booked on another airline to get us to Naples today." The Mirror is tonight working to establish how many flights were cancelled in total.
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Have you been affected by the cancellations? Contact webnews@trinitymirror.com
Bride Sarah Machete was supposed to be travelling to Italy for her wedding (X/@sarahloulou82)Guy Houston was due to fly to Tunisia with his wife and daughter to start their summer holidays. The family had forked out for a package holiday but their flight was cancelled 65 minutes before it was due to take off at Glasgow Airport. They were advised to head home and wait for further instructions.
Guy, from Falkirk, Scotland, told the Record: "We arrived at Glasgow Airport at 5am and there were passengers standing around. The airport staff were telling us to check the easyJet app and no one would speak to us.
"There were no easyJet employees there to help. By the time we arrived home, I received an email to say they couldn't provide another flight within the next two days so the entire holiday was cancelled. It's the first day of the school summer holidays and this is what families face. It's terrible. I feel like they have just washed their hands of us."
Guy claimed a customer service employee from easyJet's call centre said their flight was cancelled due to storms that had affected UK flights and it was out of their control.
He added: "The airline said we would get a refund but there was no mention of compensation. We booked this holiday months ago and we got a good price.
"I'm thousands of pounds out of pocket, it will be hard to book something else. I'm desperately trying to sort something else out for us but we've only got a certain amount of time booked off work. I won't be rebooking with them."
The airline said on their website the cancellations were due to an issue with air traffic control. A third flight from Crete to Edinburgh that was due to leave at 23.35 on Wednesday June 26, was also cancelled with a "technical issue" on the aircraft cited as the fault by the airline. Multiple flights from Edinburgh to London and Glasgow to Malaga were also affected.
The airline also made a spate of cancellations to early morning flights across other UK airports as passengers took to social media to claim they were stranded in Turkey and Greece without accommodation.
Sarah Machete's trip to Naples has been put into jeopardy (Getty Images/iStockphoto)One mother in the early hours of the morning said passengers at Dalaman had been abandoned been in the airport for three hours without any help or offer of accommodation. A man also reported the same issue for a flight to London that had been cancelled.
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Andrew Parker said his elderly parents were stuck in Malaga after a fight to Liverpool was cancelled and there staff to help anyone. Mark Kent posted on X "Was due to return to AMS from EDI last night. Notified I get to EDI it was cancelled. No one on at counter only a note to go to the drop area. Your staff there were clueless, lazy, telling us to sort it through the app. Abysmal."
A spokesperson for easyJet said: "We’re very sorry that, due to the impact of air traffic control restrictions caused by adverse weather yesterday which meant this flight was unable to operate and no suitable alternative flights were available, we had to cancel this customer's holiday at short notice. We’ve been in touch with our customer to apologise and confirm that we have processed a full refund."