Holidaymakers’ flight 3 weeks late!
COUPLE LEFT STRANDED ON HOLIDAY ISLAND
A COUPLE were stranded in Madeira after easyJet cancelled their flight and offered them a new one...THREE WEEKS later.
Karen Broadbent, 54, and Melanie Lord, 47, from Oldham, were due to fly home from the Portuguese island on October 2 when their flight was scrapped due to bad weather after they got to the airport.
And the couple could hardly believe their ears when the budget airline offered them a new date for October 26.
Put up for just one night by easyJet, they spent six days at a cheap B&B after borrowing money from friends and family.
They found a flight with Jet2.com to bring them home yesterday - but it cost them £325.
They also spent £250 on accom- modation - and lost out on a week’s wages.
Karen, a head chef, said: “It’s awful, I’m appalled - the first week was brilliant, then this happened.
“As soon as we got to the airport we knew something was wrong - it was chaos.
“We don’t have the money to deal with this and we don’t have credit cards because we believe in only spending what you have.
“How were we supposed to stay three weeks on an island with no accommodation?
“It’s like they just abandoned us.
“We’ve tried calling and emailing easyJet and they’ve not helped us since the first night at the hotel.
“One call was 90 minutes and I just kept getting passed around. We’ve spoken to other passengers, they’ve all had to fund their own way home.”
The couple, from Lees, paid £91 each for return easyJet flights.
Initially told their return flight had been delayed and to check-in, it was cancelled six hours later.
After queuing for help for a further two hours, staff told them the earliest replacement would be October 26 - 24 days later.
At 4am, the airline bussed the couple and other passengers to a hotel.
Karen says they were asked to check out the following day - and were left with nowhere to stay.
They borrowed £325 to pay for flights with Jet2.com for yesterday, but it has meant spending an extra week on the island.
Karen added: “We had to borrow so we had money in our accounts for bills going out. “We can’t figure out why Jet2.com and Thomson passengers got flights the next day, but easyJet had none. “Some people were saying it’s because they were helping with what happened with Monarch. “But why would they leave their own passengers stranded? “We are lucky people could lend us the money - but we’re both head chefs and it’s meant our bosses have had to bring in agency staff. “All we want is the money back that we’ve spent because we owe that to other people.”
An easyJet spokesman said around 20 of the 50 flights due to land or take off from Funchal Airport on Madeira were cancelled on October 2 as a result of high winds.
He said there were limited alternative flight options due to the number of passengers affected and they arranged hotel accommodation while they found the next available flight.
He said they had received a call from Ms Broadbent and tried to find her a flight to another UK airport but no availability meant they told her they would reimburse her Jet2.com flight cost and their hotel stay.
The spokesperson said: “We would like to sincerely apologise to Ms Lord and Ms Broadbent that we could not provide alternative flights.
“We are contacting them to reimburse the costs of their alternative flights and hotel costs.”
How were we supposed to stay three weeks on an island with no accommodation? Karen Broadbent