I was due to fly with easyJet last December to Lyon in France on a 6.50am flight. Six hours before the flight was due to leave – just after midnight – the airline sent me an email saying the flight had been cancelled.
Having established this wasn’t a scam, being unable to contact easyJet and needing to fly, I was forced to go online and book an alternative flight. The cheapest was through Expedia at £393 and, despite it meaning I would lose a day of my holiday, I booked it.
Incredibly, at 05.21 – when I had been expecting to be checking in for my original flight – I received another easyJet email claiming the first had been sent because of a “technical error” and my flight would run. I was asked to proceed to the boarding gate, which was impossible as I was miles away.
Since then, I have been locked in a battle with the airline to get it to cover the cost of the replacement flight.
My original claim was rejected by customer services on 21 December. I then took my complaint to Resolver, (resolver.co.uk) at which point easyJet promised me the amount, less the easyJet fare. I accepted, and immediately sent my credit card details. Nothing was paid.
I have been in contact with the airline every month, but it just will not send the money. I am at my wits’ end, having rung customer services, completed online forms and written numerous emails with attachments in the different formats required. You are my last resort.
SC, Chudleigh, Devon
My partner and I tried to fly with easyJet from Bristol to Barcelona in March, but the flight was cancelled because of industrial action by French air traffic control workers.
After two and a half hours standing in a queue waiting to be seen, easyJet sent us to a hotel near Bristol. They could not get us on another flight to Barcelona so we opted for a flight to Madrid instead. Upon return, I filed an expenses claim for £263 using the website, as instructed. Many emails and phone calls later, we received an email with an apology and an assurance that easyJet were “ready to reimburse” us the slightly smaller amount of £260 once we provided details to enable cheque payment to be made. Since June, I have been trying to get this money, and don’t believe they have any intention of paying it.
RE, Devizes
Two weeks ago it was BA, this week it’s our other most-complained-about airline, easyJet. We are getting enough letters from fed-up easyJet customers at the moment that we could fill this column several times over.
The first letter is an extraordinary cock-up by someone at the airline, and a new one on us. To be told the flight was cancelled a few hours before departure, only to then be told that it was mistake, would be extremely annoying – incredibly so if you’d just spent almost £400 on an alternative flight.
Apparently, half the passengers didn’t make it on to the flight in question, having made other plans, or abandoned, as you had. It’s very poor on the airline’s behalf, but sadly it has been too common an experience at this airline this year.
This week Money was contacted by another passenger who had helped the airline out by agreeing to get off a flight from Turkey to the UK. It was caused by the fact that the flight didn’t have enough crew, and had they not agreed to get off, the flight would have been cancelled. They say they are still waiting for the compensation they were promised several weeks on – and they’d helped the airline out.
Another passenger, OC, also contacted us this week to say that he is owed more than £1,000 by the airline.
“I have had trouble at every step of the way, with easyJet claiming that the receipts I sent in via email to their customer services department hadn’t been received, and I’ve spent an accumulated four hours on the phone to them and still haven’t got a clue when I might be getting my money back,” he wrote.
A spokesman for easyJet told Money: “Over the last few months, the airline industry has seen unprecedented levels of disruption as a result of external factors like French ATC strikes and air traffic congestion in the London area and in Europe. This has led to a larger than expected volume of claims for us to process. We would like to apologise for the delay in processing these claims and for any inconvenience experienced as a result – easyJet has now made contact with the passengers [above] and processed their claims.”
It seem to us that the company simply doesn’t have enough support staff and problems like this are backing up at its admin offices.
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