Family’s holiday ’wrecked by boarding mix-up’
AN investigation is under way into how a family flew from Bristol Airport even though easyJet had mistakenly recorded them as being denied boarding and taken their luggage off the flight.
The internal easyJet investigation will centre around what happened as passengers boarded the flight from Bristol to Lisbon on Friday, September 24.
A young family boarded the plane as normal with all the right paperwork, but were recorded as having been ‘denied boarding’ and – without their knowledge and as they took their seats – their luggage and belongings were off the flight.
Now, the family from Long Ashton have been left without their belongings, toddler’s pushchair and car seat on holiday in Spain – because easyJet initially refused to believe they had actually been on the plane and flown, when the flight’s manifest recorded they were not on board.
Leigh Husband said their trip to a family wedding in Spain and holiday had been ‘wrecked.’
Leigh and his wife Irene Garcia Santos said they were also concerned they were able to take a flight without being on the plane’s official manifest.
The mix-up appears to have happened when the couple and toddler Antonio checked in at the easyJet desk at Bristol Airport on Friday for a flight to Lisbon in Portugal and handed over their baggage and car seat at the check-in desk. The family were jetting out to a family wedding and were planning to drive from Lisbon into western Spain to stay with Irene’s family for the ceremony on Saturday.
They filled in the required Passenger Locator Forms, providing the airline and customs with details of who they were and where they would be staying, as required under Covid rules on travelling to Spain and Portugal, but didn’t think they would need one for twoyear-old Antonio.
“The lady on the desk said that we would need one for him, and handed us a form to fill in, but said we could hand it in at the gate, as we needed to get through security. So that’s what we did,” said Mr Husband.
The family went through security, were checked at the boarding gate and went with all the other passengers to the plane as normal.
They settled down for a routine flight, landed in Lisbon and thought nothing untoward had happened until they waited an hour in vain for their luggage to come through at Lisbon Airport.
They contacted easyJet and were stunned when they were told it was because they had been ‘denied boarding.’
“I phoned up easyJet and said ‘we’re in Lisbon, can you send on our baggage?’ and they said ‘no you weren’t on the plane, you were denied boarding, your boarding passes weren’t scanned, so we took your stuff off the plane,’” said Leigh.
“There are Civil Aviation Authority rules about knowing exactly who is on every flight. If that plane had to make a forced landing or we all had to be evacuated or something, they wouldn’t have looked for us, they thought we weren’t on board,” he said. “Why, when they got the order to take our stuff off the plane because they thought we weren’t on it, didn’t they check our seats? They would have found us sitting in them.”
Leigh said: “We had to buy a car seat in Lisbon to be able to get to where we are staying. We’ve had to buy a pushchair, as we are struggling to carry Antonio. My wife is seven months pregnant at the moment.
“All our stuff for the wedding, suits, dresses, presents and so on, was in our luggage so we didn’t have that for the wedding on Saturday and we have the clothes we came in.”
A spokesperson for easyJet said: “EasyJet works closely with all of our airports and partners to ensure the safety and security of all passengers and crew.
“We have launched an investigation with our ground handling partners at Bristol Airport to understand what happened in this instance and have apologised to Mr Husband and Ms Garcia Santos for the delay in reuniting them with their luggage, which is current being delivered to them as quickly as possible.
“The safety and well-being of our passengers and crew is always easyJet’s highest priority.”
Why, when they got the order to take our stuff off the plane ... didn’t they check our seats?f Leigh Husband