Father and daughter forced to take four trains and a bus home from Munich after flight chaos
A father and daughter from Leicestershire say they're having to travel back to the UK from Germany using four trains and a bus, after their flight home from Munich was cancelled due to the air traffic control problems over the bank holiday weekend.
Tony Kerr and his daughter Alannah, from Fleckney, went to the Bavarian city for a three-day trip, to help them learn the German language, as Alannah is currently studying German for her GCSEs.
However, she will now miss her first two days of Year 11 because of the problems getting back home on Bank Holiday Monday, and Tony will miss two days of work.
Mr Kerr told ITV News that he found out his British Airways flight from Munich to Heathrow was cancelled when he arrived at the German airport last night, despite his checks throughout the day telling him the flight was just delayed, and that he should still go to the airport as normal.
He said: "There was nobody at the airport from British Airways. There were no representatives.
"There were people still queuing up to check in for our flight, unaware that it had been cancelled or even that there was an issue with the air traffic control system yesterday.
"So we were then sharing news and information with each other. The British Airways app was not working. There's supposedly a refund and a rebooking button that just was non-existent.
"Contact details for people in Germany and in London had been removed or were non-existent on the app. They've not replied to tweets. They weren't answering the phone from the helplines.
"I realise it was a massive incident yesterday. Obviously, there are a lot of people, not just with BA who were affected, but we've had no support, no information."
After learning he and his daughter were stuck in Munich, Tony began looking for alternate flights.
But he said prices were "skyrocketing" as quickly as he was able to check them, and then disappearing from availability, so he was worried he wouldn't be able to afford to get home at all.
He said he gave up trying to secure another flight home when the cheapest he could find was £4,000, travelling via Dubai, on Thursday.
He was forced to find alternative means of travel, to limit the amount of school time his daughter misses.
In the end, Tony was able to book four trains and a bus to get back to London, through Luxembourg and Belgium, arriving at St Pancras tomorrow morning, costing £542 in total. They then need to get to Heathrow to collect his car before driving up to the East Midlands.
He says the whole ordeal has been very difficult for both of them.
"We managed to squeeze this trip in between my work, and the start of her school term. We're here practicing our German. She's doing German GCSE this year, and so I'm just trying to engage and immerse her in a little bit of that.
"We've had a fantastic three days, despite the heavy rain. And then yesterday, from the middle of the day when the news was breaking, it's been quite an anxious time.
"My daughter suffers from quite high anxiety anyway. So it's been quite difficult, until we had a solution. My anxiety was around whether I could even afford to get home in the next two weeks."
ITV News contacted British Airways, who said: "Like other airlines operating in the UK, we are continuing to experience the knock-on effects of yesterday’s NATS Air Traffic Control issue, which includes unavoidable delays and cancellations.
"Customers travelling today or tomorrow on short-haul services can move their flight to a later date free of charge if they wish, subject to availability.
"We’ve apologised for the huge inconvenience caused, which was outside of our control and thank our customers for their patience as we work hard to get back on track."