Cornwall couple around '£2,200 out of pocket' after flight cancelled

A Cornwall couple said they have been left '£2,000 out of pocket' after their flight was cancelled due to the air traffic control 'glitch'.

Tom and Ella Perry were due to return home from a holiday in Crete on Monday night.

But their flight was cancelled about an hour before they planned to leave for the airport.

They had to book alternative flights to Bristol Airport for Friday, instead of their original destination of Luton, at the cost of £1,172.

Tom said they are “gutted” to have to pay for new flights with a different airline without getting a refund for their original booking.

They had to pay £300 on extending their stay at a villa in Sissi, as well as paying for a parking space for the additional days at Luton Airport and for their dog to stay at a kennel.

Tom’s wife, Ella, is an NHS nurse who could also “lose pay or annual leave”, he said.

Travel delays started on Monday 28 August after a UK air traffic control failure, which meant flight plans had to be input manually by controllers.

More airline passengers suffered flight cancellations on Tuesday due to the knock-on impact.

Tom: “Earlier in the day, probably six or seven hours previous, we saw that there were delays so I was keeping an eye on that.”

He said the couple’s flight was initially pushed back until 7am the following day “but as the day went on it got better. Eventually it got to about an hour and a half delay from the original time of the flight.”

Then, about an hour before they left for the airport, the easyJet app announced that their flight had been cancelled, Mr Perry said.

He said: “The communication was very, very poor, I would say. We got an email eventually, probably about an hour after the app updated, to say it was cancelled, to say, ‘Yes, it’s cancelled.’”

Mr Perry said he contacted easyJet and booked a new return flight for next Monday, with no extra charge, as “that was the only [direct flight] available” at the time.

However, the flight will return to Bristol Airport - over 140 miles away from their car which is parked at Luton Airport.

Mr Perry said: “Then, about an hour later, I looked online and found one that goes from Crete airport this coming Friday with Jet2, so we booked with them to go back to Bristol.

“We live in Cornwall, so we’re going to go back to Bristol, get a lift back to Luton, pick our car up, and then go back to Cornwall.”

Mr Perry said he has requested a refund for the return flights portion of his £907 round trip flights but easyJet has declined.

EasyJet said they have been in contact with Tom and Ella to refund them the cost of their earlier flight home, and are "sorry for the difficulty caused".

A spokesperson said: "Our teams have been working around the clock since the ATC systems failure to help our customers as quickly as possible.

"As this is one of the busiest weeks of the year, this is very challenging however we are providing hotel accommodation where it is available and operating additional repatriation flights as well as larger aircraft on many routes."

Tom said he was shocked at how little support he had received from the customer service team.

Tom continued: “I understand these things happen – I work in sales myself, I understand things happen – but it’s the way you look after customers, customer service, and the way [easyJet has] handled it is shocking.

“The fact that they can’t give a refund on flights that were issued…when they’re selling those flights for £400 a piece is a bit of a joke.

“I could have got them off the phone in five minutes if they had said ‘Yep, no problem at all'. It would have been done and dusted.

He added: “I wouldn’t book with them again. They said that they’re a low-cost airline so it is what it is, but I wouldn’t be booking with them again.”