A couple forced to fly to Bristol after their return holiday flight to Glasgow was cancelled were told they would have to jet back to Spain if they wanted to get home to Scotland.
Carly Wilkinson and partner Reece Pollock had spent a week in Majorca and were waiting at Palma airport for their easyJet flight when they got a text telling them it was off. Airline staff said they could shell out £600 to travel with another airline or wait 11 hours for an alternative flight to Glasgow via Bristol Airport.
Carly, 22, and Reece, 23, agreed to travel to Bristol but on arrival then received a text to say that their plane to Glasgow had also been cancelled.
She said: “They said they could fly us back to Glasgow but we would have to go via Alicante in Spain, where we had just come from. We couldn’t believe it – we had been travelling for hours and just wanted to get home. We didn’t want to end up stranded in Alicante.”
When the couple refused, easyJet agreed to pay for a six-hour 400-mile taxi trip back to Glasgow along with eight other passengers last month.
Carly, a janitor at Edinburgh University, said: “It was a nightmare. We had a lovely holiday but it was totally ruined by the disaster we had getting home. What should have been a two-and-a-half-hour flight turned into us travelling for 27 hours. We arrived at Palma de Mallorca Airport at 3am for a 7am flight only to be told it was cancelled.
"They said we could pay £600 for flights with another airline and, when I asked what if people couldn’t afford that, the staff just shrugged. I arranged a flight home via Bristol through their app but we had to wait about the airport till 2pm.
"Once we finally got to Bristol, we collected our luggage and checked it onto the Glasgow flight before we got the text. There were 10 of us in the same situation so we stuck together and eventually easyJet agreed to send us via taxi back to Glasgow.”
The couple had paid £1500 for a seven-night package holiday via On The Beach booking agent and flying with easyJet.They contacted the airline to complain.
Carly added: “After the longest journey home, we then had to pay another £50 for a taxi back to Balloch to collect my car. We slept on the floor in the airport and easyJet didn’t offer us any vouchers towards food.”
After being contacted by the Sunday Mail, easyJet has now given the couple £100 in expenses.
An airline spokeswoman said: “We did all possible to minimise the impact of the disruption. They transferred to an alternative flight to Bristol where we arranged a car transfer to Glasgow due to their onward flight also being cancelled as a result of air traffic control restrictions.
“We understand the difficulty this will have caused and we are contacting the couple to apologise for their experience and
reimburse them for their expenses.”
On The Beach did not respond to our request for comment.
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