Easyjet has been slammed for ruining a family's dream Disney holiday after cancelling two of their flights and leaving them stranded on the airport floor.
Rachel Allan and her husband Greig, from Glenrothes in Schotland, were due to travel to the Paris resort on Friday, March 10, with their children Joshua, 7, and Evah, 6.
The trip was part of a surprise for Evah's birthday, with the family forking out £1800 on the trip. But they were left devastated when easyJet cancelled their flights after the family arrived at Edinburgh Airport.
Rachel and Greig, both 31, and the kids were meant to travel to Charles de Gaulle, but was cancelled due to French air traffic control strike, the DailyRecord reports.
The family claimed they weren't told by the airline, but were offered a flight to Bristol with a connecting flight to Paris the following morning.
But, just after landing in Bristol they were told their connecting flight was also being cancelled for the same reason.
Rachel explained her children were left in tears and had to sit on the airport floor for several hours.
"We told the kids they were going to Disneyland on Thursday night and filmed their reaction for a nice memory," she explained.
"It was a surprise for my daughter's birthday and she was ecstatic.
"But when the second flight was cancelled we were all left heartbroken. The children thought they were going to have fun at Disney but instead, they had to sit on the floor of Bristol Airport.
"There weren't even chairs because we couldn't get through departures and all they had to eat was a Burger King. My daughter's birthday was destroyed.
"My issue isn't the money we spent, it's the kid's having their holiday taken away from them."
The airline could only offer the family-of-four a flight on Monday, and refused to change their return trip on Tuesday, meaning the parents and children would only have one day in the French capital.
Because of this, the parents made the heartbreaking decision to cancel the holiday, despite forking out nearly £2,000 on accommodation and tickets, and were forced to take the children home.
To make matters worse, the family had to fork out £312 on a return journey north to Scotland.
Since returning home, easyJet has agreed to refund the couple for their flights to Bristol and back, and their overnight hotel stay.
Disney has since been in touch with the Allan's and offered to look into moving their stay to a later date.
Rachel said: "There is a bit of hope with Disney. They didn't do anything wrong - they were open and made it clear that it wasn't their fault we couldn't there there.
"But someone from the Disney team offered to try and see if they could change the dates for us. We don't expect them to give us a refund but a change of date would be ideal."
A spokesperson for easyJet said: “Due to French national strike action airlines were requested by the French authorities to make some cancellations to their flying programmes which meant the Allan family’s flight from Edinburgh to Paris was unfortunately unable to operate.
“We notified customers in advance with their options of a free transfer or a refund to help them rebook, however due to the strike action impacting all airlines the flight from Bristol to Paris was also unable to operate.
“The safety and wellbeing of our customers and crew is easyJet’s highest priority. We understand the difficulty this will have caused and we have been in touch with the family to apologise for their experience, reimburse them for their expenses and provide the compensation they are due.”
