Major airline axes flights seeing families stranded & holiday plans canned

A MAJOR airline beloved by Brits jetting off on their summer holidays has left them stranded after cancelling flights with little notice.

EasyJet has axed a series of flights, sending home tourists who turned up at two UK airports to check in.

One woman was already en route to the airport to jet to Naples for her dream wedding when she received notice of the canned flight.

The popular budget airline cancelled the journeys leaving from airports in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Soon-to-be bride Sarah Machete told the 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.”

Someone else, booked on the same flight, raged on X after losing two days of his holiday.

Ian wrote: “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.” 

And Guy Houston, who was supposed to go to Tunisia for some sun with his wife and daughter, said his flight was cancelled an hour before take off.

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 Houston

He 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.”

EasyJet announced on their website that cancellations were due to an air traffic control problem.

Guy said a customer service rep told him flights were cancelled because of storms.

He said: “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.”

Another flight from Crete returning to Edinburgh was cancelled because of a “technical issue” on the aircraft.

Some customers complained online that they had been left stranded abroad without accomodation.

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.”

It comes as passengers at Heathrow airport were left fuming after an “IT outage” sparked huge delays and massive queues.

Stranded passengers said they were stuck on planes and left travelling home without luggage.

Brit Richard White, 59, told The Sun of how he was stuck on his flight for an hour at the airport.

He said: “So we were on the runway for over an hour after we landed. The pilot wanted passengers to keep their seatbelts on because we could move any moment.

“The problem was that a lot of people needed the toilet. At one point the pilot had to move the plane at short notice, when some people were in the toilet. It really was very difficult.”

And Manchester airport experienced similarly huge queues last week when all flights out of Terminals 1 and 2 were cancelled.

Flyers told The Sun those terminals were like a “minefield” earlier as thousands of people were stuck inside with nowhere to go.

Hundreds of suitcases were also dumped at abandoned check-in areas as conveyorbelts and computers had stopped working.