A father of two has been left £10,000 out of pocket after his family holiday to Greece was ruined by wildfires.
Chris Elworthy, 42, a farmer from Faversham in Kent, was supposed to fly with easyJet to Rhodes on Saturday with his wife Emma, 43, and children, Thomas, 13, and Charlotte, 11, to reach a private villa in Pefkos – but both bookings were cancelled.
The former Royal Engineers officer said easyJet is not “helping at all” with a voucher or another flight and the villa is refusing to provide a refund.
The villa is refusing to refund us, and the holiday insurance is saying that we’re not covered because we didn’t have the additional natural disaster cover on top of the ordinary cover— Chris Elworthy
“We are now £10,000 out of pocket; easyJet is not helping at all with a flight, despite having promised on Twitter that they would provide a voucher or another flight… 24 hours later they have done nothing,” he told the PA news agency.
“The villa is refusing to refund us, and the holiday insurance is saying that we’re not covered because we didn’t have the additional natural disaster cover on top of the ordinary cover.”
Mr Elworthy and his family had to get off their initial flight to Rhodes while still on the tarmac at Gatwick Airport, after news spread that wildfires were raging on the Greek island.
He said: “We boarded the flight to Rhodes… then suddenly a BBC News report came up about fires in Rhodes and then everyone started checking their phones and ringing their holiday operators.”
The family’s holiday operators initially told him the villa was “totally safe” as it is 20 kilometres from where the fire was, but Mr Elworthy and his family still planned to fly to Rhodes.
However, easyJet announced that the flight would not be going ahead.
Mr Elworthy, who is an MBE, said it was “really poor” that they were delayed for five hours before they received any food or drink vouchers from easyJet.
“The manager came and said one of the air crews was sick – that was another delay, and they couldn’t let us board,” he said.
“Then we got on the plane and the pilot announced that the air crew member actually ran out of hours… it wasn’t the fact that they were sick at all.”
As the Elworthy family were about to take off they received a text message that Pefkos was being evacuated along with another resort.
After his flight was cancelled, Mr Elworthy called easyJet customer service and was told they were labelled as “no shows” for the flight.
He added that he called another two times but has still not received a response.
Mr Elworthy said: “I haven’t heard anything… I was told to message easyJet on Twitter – I did that and received no response.
“It’s just so frustrating, I’m in complete limbo – don’t know whether to book a new flight and I can’t get vouchers because easyJet is just walling me.”
The airline has been contacted by PA for comment.
