An Edinburgh family were forced to miss an entire day of their holiday after their easyJet flight was cancelled hours before departure.
David Tuck, his partner and their two children were due to head to Switzerland on Sunday (April 3), a trip that had already been postponed from last year due to the pandemic.
Booked to fly from Edinburgh Airport to Geneva at around lunchtime, David told Edinburgh Live he had woken up to an email from the airline to say the journey was cancelled, with no explanation.
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One of thousands of passengers across the country who experienced similar cancellations in recent days, the family had tried to contact the airline, but couldn't get through.
David said: “I know it can be hard for airlines right now with staff shortages and increased demand for travel, but such a last minute cancellation with zero information or any support to find another flight is very poor customer service.
"They could’ve sent a text message as soon as they knew with a link to alternative flights. Instead I was on hold for an hour to try and speak to easyJet and the line was cut off."
Still desperate to get to Geneva for their seven-day-break, the family had looked for options of flights from other airports, many of which were fully booked.
Eventually, they were able to secure a flight on Monday at 6.20pm from Birmingham, with the family first having to fork out for an additional flight to England and then onto Switzerland.
Unable to get back the day of their holiday now missed, David added:
"We went online to see what options there were but there wasn't anything from Scotland.
"Yesterday morning we were getting ready to go, we've had it booked for three years and were supposed to go last summer.
"We got a flight this morning at 6.45am to Birmingham and then are spending 10 hours between the two flights, that was the only way we could do it as the train option would have been £1500, car hire was £800 plus driving.
"We've been hanging around Birmingham all day and are just praying our new flight isn't cancelled or we'll be stuck in Birmingham with two kids and all our ski stuff."
On Monday, easyJet had publicly apologised for the countrywide inconvenience after a number of staff absences meant they were suffering severe alterations to their timetable.
The airline said it had tried to offset the problem but deploying standby crew, but were ultimately forced "to make some cancellations in advance."
Sharing the cancellations, the airline said : “As a result of the current high rates of Covid infections across Europe, like all businesses easyJet is experiencing higher than usual levels of employee sickness."
Edinburgh Live contacted easyJet for comment.
