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Bristol Post
Bristol Post
National
Maisie Lillywhite

EasyJet passenger pays £350 for taxi from Bristol to London after cancelled flight

A man had to fork out £350 for a taxi journey from Bristol to London after his flight with easyJet was cancelled. Thousands of Brits have been left furious as easyJet has been making last minute flight cancellations, scuppering their holiday plans.

The low-cost airline scrapped 1,700 flights scheduled for July, August and September due to "unprecedented" air traffic control delays, MailOnline reports, affecting 180,000 holidaymakers. Those who have had flights home affected by the cancellations have hit out at easyJet for putting them up in hotels that are "disgusting" and "dangerous".

Whilst some passengers have been left stranded abroad, others have been left frustrated with easyJet after missing out on their holidays and losing thousands of pounds as a result. One holidaymaker, Mark Buntin, spoke of his annoyance after his flight from Belfast to Turkey got cancelled and he was forced to fork out £350 on a taxi.

Read more: 'We left our kids and flew to Ibiza for 10 hours after bagging flights for £37'

Mr Buntin was due to fly from the Northern Irish capital to Dalaman, Turkey, with a connecting flight at Luton Airport. But when the holidaymaker arrived at Belfast International Airport at 6am on Saturday, he was informed by staff that his flight to Luton had been cancelled.

He told MailOnline: "I had to get a flight to Bristol, then a taxi from Bristol to Luton - which is three hours away. The taxi which cost me £350! Not the start to the holiday I was expecting."

Although Mr Buntin made it to Turkey, he has claimed that the service from easyJet since the cancellation has been "poor" and is anxious that his flight back home will be cancelled. The airline, which is the biggest in the UK by number of passengers, is believed to have cancelled two per cent of its flight schedule for the summer, leaving the travel industry on high alert for disruption this summer.

Earlier this week, easyJet said that making changes now meant it could avoid last-minute cancellations which were more costly and caused passengers more inconvenience. Whilst the airline claims to have enough crew and pilots, air traffic worries meant that it had cancelled 1,700 flights, mostly from its biggest base at Gatwick airport, out of the 90,000 scheduled for the rest of July and August.

easyJet claimed that 95 per cent of passengers affected by the cancellations had already been rebooked on an alternative flight because it had mostly consolidated flights with multiple frequencies. In a statement on Monday, July 10, the airline said: "We are sorry for any inconvenience that this may have caused."

Click here for more holiday news.

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