A mum has shared shocking photos of her child's car seat that was mysteriously destroyed during a easyJet flight home from Venice.
Joanne Bolton claims she got off the flight in Liverpool on Saturday to find the £150 seat ripped, covered in scuff marks with a hole in the back.
The airline has since launched an urgent investigation.
The car seat had been in the hold during her return flight and the destruction meant Joanne could not get her child home safely to Euxton, Lancashire - 40 miles away from Liverpool John Lennon Airport.
A family member had to drive to the airport to lend Joanne a car seat.
Joanne posted snaps of the destruction online with the caption: "This is the state of my little boy's car seat.
"The form I have been given to fill in online won't work as it's only for luggage, not seats, and it also left me unable to get my child home safely, without having to trail out a family member to lend me their child's seat to come home.
"Also after a holiday I don't have almost £150 to replace it.
"Your offices are closed now until Tuesday and I really need to be reimbursed asap as I now can't take him out."
The images appear to show the top of the car seat torn off, with the back of the head rest having a massive hole in the middle. As well as the back of the head rest, the back of seat looks severely scraped.
An easyJet representative tried to help Joanne online but ended up making the situation worse, writing that it was possible "you would need to take the second option for the damaged luggage team to collect and repair the item".
Meg Hill responded online: "You can't repair a car seat like that ffs. I can't believe you're endangering a child's life like this."
Lisa Sal said: "You cannot repair a car seat. Even if you have a slow moving accident - 20mph or so - you should always change the car seat because the integrity is compromised. This is ridiculous."
Others could not understand how the seat got so mangled.
Helen Victoria Rabbit said "That's disgusting. easyJet how could you let her leave the airport?"
Elisha Brown commented: "How do they even do that to a seat? That is so embarrassing I would expect customer services to be scrambling to fund the replacement of the seat ASAP."
Speaking today, Joanne said she wasn't impressed when she was told she might have to wait for 14 days to receive her refund.
She said: "It is not great that I was expected to leave the airport like that though or that I have to wait up to two weeks for the money back.
"The lady did say she is going to see about getting emergency seats put behind the desk though in case it happens again."
A spokeswoman for easyJet: "We are very sorry Ms Bolton's car seat was damaged in transit from Venice to Liverpool.
"We know how crucial it is for families travelling with us that items like this are well cared for. We immediately contacted Ms Bolton when she raised the issue with us to apologise for her experience and we have provided a refund of £150.
"We are urgently investigating this with our ground handling partners at Liverpool and Venice.
"On average we fly more than 1500 flights per day across more than 30 countries and incidents of this type are extremely rare."
