A Bristol couple travelling back from Alicante with their teenage son and his girlfriend whose flight was cancelled claim they're still owed thousands by airline EasyJet. Zoff Hayward and partner Liz Lewitt were at the airport due to travel back from Alicante on June 6 when their flight was axed.
They were then put up in temporary accommodation but that turfed the family out after a one-night stay. They finally returned to Bristol four days later.
They say they are still owed over £2,500 from EasyJet for the cost of the extra days stay. Liz and Zoff told Bristol Live it's 'lucky' they are self-employed, as they would have otherwise felt concerned they would lose their jobs having to return much later than planned.
The couple found out their flight was cancelled having already arrived at the airport. Zoff said: "I was tracking the flight on the app and it didn't show anything amiss.
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"A Spanish member of staff on the gate looked at our boarding passes and told us the flight was cancelled. I then went to the EasyJet bag drop, who told us there were no support staff at the airport as the airline is an 'online carrier', and the next Bristol flight was in four days."
After around an hour of trying to arrange return flights to Bristol, the family found an EasyJet staff member to speak to among the crowd of travellers. "There were around 200 other people trying to sort how to get home, and as we spoke to the EasyJet employee, we were eventually told we'd be put up in a hotel, as there was no return flight for four days.
"We accepted this, as by then it was 2am." The family were sent to a resort with the aim of a four-night stay until the next flight, with a 'tiny slip of paper with the address printed on it so we could liaise with the taxi driver'. But the next morning they were told they had to leave.
"We ended up in a golf resort miles from anywhere," Zoff told Bristol Live. "We had just had breakfast and were working out what to do, when reception told us they needed our rooms back. They said our booking was only for the one night, not the four EasyJet had promised, and other people on our flight were getting the same message."
As a result, Zoff and Liz booked an apartment in Alicante with their own money for the three further nights before their new flight to Bristol. Liz said, "We were at the hotel EasyJet had provided for less than 12 hours, and we were given so little information or choice.
"The taxi from Alicante to the resort cost 90 euros one way, which we had to pay ourselves." Upon return to Bristol, the family claimed for the money back, after they were left a total of over £2,500 out of pocket and they still haven't received the money from EasyJet.
Zoff said, "We put in an expenses and compensation claim, which says it was authorised by email on July 20. We were told we'd get our money in seven to 14 days.
"We have now chased up the payment, which says it has been 'declined'. We spoke to someone from a call centre who confirmed the claim has been 'denied' and there has been no reason given."
Liz said, "EasyJet have been evasive and cut us off. The claim has been deemed as 'invalid' even though we received emails confirming it and it shows as pending on the 'manage my bookings' section online.
"It is now five weeks since we came back and we paid for everything ourselves. I have now spoken to someone else from the call centre who said the exact opposite - that the monies had already been paid.
"I asked what account they'd been paid into, but the line went dead. I called again, and the same thing happened. Finally, I was sent a link through to an online chatbot after having called for a third time, and the chat person concluded 'they weren’t from the compensation department', which was the reason they were 'unable to share the details at this time'."
A spokesperson for EasyJet said: "We are sorry that Mr Hayward’s and Ms Lewitt's flight from Alicante to Bristol was cancelled due to air traffic control restrictions, which led to the crew reaching their maximum safety regulated operating hours.
“The safety and wellbeing of our customers and crew is EasyJet’s highest priority. We did all possible to minimise the impact of the disruption for our customers, providing options to rebook or receive a refund along with information on arranging hotel accommodation and meals, which were sent to the family’s travel agent as their contact details were on the booking.
"We ask third parties to ensure they pass on any important information to their customers and we are sorry to hear that this was not shared with them. We provide hotel accommodation for customers for as long as required during times of disruption and so we are looking into their experience with our hotel accommodation provider and reimbursing the family for the alternative accommodation they arranged.
"As we initially didn’t receive the correct information to be able to pay their expenses, our team is in touch with Mr Hayward and Ms Lewitt to resolve this and reimburse them.”
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