A stranded Bristol couple say there's 'blind panic' in Egypt as travellers attempt to get home after the country went into lockdown.
Anne-Marie and Matthew Gikes told the BBC their easyJet flight was cancelled and resold as 'rescue seats' as they slammed the firm's behaviour as "absolutely despicable".
The couple flew from Bristol to Hurghada on 11 March. Days later the Foreign Office updated its travel advice urging all UK citizens to return home and Egypt's borders were closed.
Bosses at easyJet have moved to reassure customers that they 'committed' to getting all of their customers home.
"I will never fly with them again as long as I live," said Mrs Giles. "They could have made a horrible situation easier."
An easyJet spokeswoman told the BBC : "We would like to reassure customers that where we have been required to cancel flights, we are committed to getting customers home as quickly as possible and we have been operating rescue flights.
"We have been working hard to provide a programme of repatriation flights which have been published on our latest travel information pages as soon as they are confirmed."
Since March 12, the company has carried out more than 500 rescue flights but no planes to and from Egypt were possible.
The couple did not cancel their holiday because no travel advice was issued before they set off so they feared their travel insurance would be invalid if they cancelled.
"On the Monday (16 March) we were told that Egypt would be closing its airspace, closing its borders and all the hotels would be closed," Mrs Gikes said.
"There was blind panic, with everyone trying to get on a flight.
"Just after we found that out, we found that our flight home on the Saturday had been cancelled.
"They didn't offer us any other flight so people were desperately trying to find a way home, before we were thrown out of the hotel."
