Passengers have described feeling stressed, frustrated and “abandoned” by airlines after travel chaos cancelled flights and left some sleeping on terminal floors following stormy weather on Sunday night.
Sonya Pascoe was forced to stay the night at Gatwick Airport following hours of delays to her flight to Belfast, which was ultimately cancelled.
Ms Pascoe, 55, was due to fly with her three colleagues on a 7.05pm easyJet flight to Northern Ireland’s capital last night. But after a two hour delay, passengers were allowed to board the plane at around 9.25 pm, only to be left waiting on the tarmac for another two hours, she said.
“They kept telling us different reasons as to why we were delayed. First it was the weather, then it was that there wasn’t enough staff to load the baggage on the plane, and then we were told they had ran out of hours to fly to Belfast…it was like a comedy of errors only it wasn’t funny in the end,” she told i.
Ms Pascoe said passengers were then told the flight was cancelled, and they had to return to the terminal where they could only re-book a new flight through the easyJet app. The app wasn’t allowing her or others to rebook, Ms Pascoe said.
Many nearby hotels were full by midnight, leaving Ms Pascoe, her colleagues, and others from the flight staying throughout the night on the airport floor. “People were really distressed by it,” she said. “I saw children were crying, adults were crying.”
Ms Pascoe said she felt “abandoned” by the way easyJet responded to the cancellation. There was no staff on the desk in the airport when they returned off the plane and no phone number to call.
“I understand that there’s weather but they don’t handle it well, they don’t care and value their customers. I wasn’t expecting a bunch of flowers but an email giving us some advice would have been good.
“There was nobody you could talk to about it, no help, you just had to work it out for yourself.”
Ms Pascoe had not yet made it back to London when she spoke to i, as the easyJet flight out of Luton she secured on Monday had also been delayed.
On Monday morning, 31 flights were cancelled at Gatwick Airport as a knock-on effect of the delays and cancellations caused by stormy weather on Sunday, when an initial 31 flights were already cancelled.
Between 20 and 30 flights were cancelled at Heathrow on Sunday, with about eight short-haul British Airway flights additionally cancelled on Monday morning.
Mike Rea, 56, had his British Airways flight to Venice out of Heathrow Airport cancelled at the last minute on Monday morning.
He said he woke up at 5 am to a 3.30 am email saying the flight he was due to board at Heathrow at 8.30 am was cancelled, with no explanation given.
Their two children and two partners were on the way to the airport when they also received the email and had to turn back.
While Mr Rea and his wife Claire got another flight on Monday, the airway couldn’t rebook a new flight for their children until tomorrow, meaning they will be a day and a half late for a five-day holiday, he said.
“We are pretty shocked that British Airlines cancelled on us so late in the day. We booked with the airline thinking it was more likely to be reliable,” he told i.
“I expected a bit more personal communication, I thought they might have been a bit more interested in helping us.”
He said the events he had booked tonight were off the table, and he was hoping he could be compensated. The experience had “dented his belief in the airline”.
A British Airways spokesperson said thunderstorms reduced the flow of flights on Sunday, which has caused some “knock-on” disruption to services on Monday. “The safety of our customers and crew is our highest priority and we apologise to our customers for any inconvenience.”
An easyJet spokesperson said that due to thunderstorms over London Gatwick Ms Pascoe’s flight to Belfast “was unable to operate as the weather delays led to the crew reaching their safety regulated operating hours”.
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“Due to the weather impacting all airlines at Gatwick meaning hotel availability in the area was limited, we are aware that some customers stayed in the terminal and while our team worked hard to help those who required assistance in the airport, we are sorry for the difficulty this will have caused.”
The spokesperson said if people were unable to rebook online or get accommodation late at night they will be reimbursed.
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