A furious family have vowed never to holiday abroad after their first getaway in years ended up with them being stuck at an airport with no food or water. Aaron Clemlow, his partner Carla Scully and their four children spent a fortnight relaxing in Sharm el Sheik.
However, their holiday turned into a disaster as they started their return trip home to Stoke-on-Trent last week. The journey, that was supposed to take around four-and-a-half hours, turned into a nightmare instead.
Not only were the disgruntled family delayed by over half a day, they found themselves locked in a deserted Italian airport, with nothing to eat or drink. Having eventually got home on June 29, Aaron filed a complaint with EasyJet about the service his family received, Stoke-on-Trent Live reports.
Aaron, 35, said: "I think they're absolutely disgusting. "EasyJet needs a kick up the a**. They've destroyed what cost me half a year's work. The memory has been ruined.
"We need another holiday after that. All the kids have talked about is being delayed and being worried."
Aaron and Carla and their seven-year-old, two ten-year-olds and 11-year-old were excited for their pre-school holiday fortnight in the Egyptian city. Unfortunately, Aaron did not find the pleasures of Red Sea resort quite up to standard.
"It was a complete and utter disaster as well," the sales and marketing executive said. "The standards over there have completely gone.
"The food and drinks were horrendous. It feels like the Egyptian nationals don't want you there."
Having got through the holiday - during which time Aaron proposed to Carla - the family checked out at noon on Tuesday (June 28) and were picked up from their hotel four and a half hours later. By the time they got to the airport their plane was already delayed by three hours.
"There were no easyJet staff in Egypt at all, a member of airport staff told us," Aaron said. "There was no one to tell us what the hell was going on.
"Two hours into the delay our phones pinged. We got a message saying 'your flight is now diverted'."
The passengers were put in a section of the Egyptian airport and eventually taken to the plane, which was now four hours late.
"As soon as we were on the plane the captain apologised and said 'your flight is diverted to Milan'," the dad continued. Those onboard were told the stop-off was necessary as crew had reached their maximum number of allowed hours working.
The easyJet plane touched down in Milan at 3am where the passengers were led to a small section to wait for their next flight.
"There were two members of airport staff there and they were very abrupt," Aaron said. "I counted 22 kids on the flight, including two diabetics.
"One had really low and one really high blood sugar. They were vulnerable. I told the staff and they said 'don't worry there's an ambulance outside'.
"Then they walked up round the corner and we never saw them again. On the easyJet plane they had ran out of food. Before the trolley got to us they ran out of anything.
"We were stuck at the airport with no food, no water, nothing, and we couldn't get out of the section we were in. We were put into an area that was locked. The vending machines were empty. The first time we saw anyone was at 7am in the morning.
"It was very tense. You could feel the tension going up and up. People started arguing and fighting. For us, we must've gone at least 13 hours without any food or water. The kids were grumpy as hell."
After more than four hours in the pen, the assembled easyJet customers were taken to another plane, which had no food onboard. Those onboard cheered when the plane landed.
Aaron said that his experience getting through Manchester Airport was great and that the baggage collection was "seamless".
"The stress and trauma it caused to the boys, I don't think they'll want to go on holiday again," Aaron said of the ordeal. "I suffer with seizures.
"My wife told me to calm down otherwise I would've got ill. The whole thing has been an absolute disaster. It's a week in a caravan in Wales next year."
An easyJet spokesperson said: “We can confirm that flight EZY1890 from Sharm El-Sheikh to Manchester operated via Milan due to an earlier delay caused by a technical issue, which resulted in the crew reaching their legally permitted operating hours before reaching Manchester.
“Getting our customers to their destination safely is our highest priority and so to ensure we could fly customers to Manchester as soon as possible, the decision was taken to operate via Milan so the flight could continue, operated by a replacement aircraft and crew. Nonetheless we fully understand the difficulty the delay in Milan will have caused to our customers and we are very sorry for this.
“The safety and wellbeing of our customers and crew is easyJet’s highest priority and we would like to apologise once again for the disruption caused to our customers on this flight."
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