A 21-year-old claims that he was mistakenly banned from flying with easyJet because of his name.
Kieran Harris, from Cheshire, was scheduled to fly to Alicante on 25 May with the low-cost carrier, having made the booking the month before, reports the Mirror.
However, the airline contacted him the day before the flight from Liverpool to tell him that he was banned from boarding “due to disruptive behaviour”, and that he had in fact received a “10 year no-fly sanction” with the carrier, lasting “until 15/03/2031”.
Mr Harris claims that easyJet has confused him with a man who shares the same name and birthday as him, who was sentenced to 12 weeks in prison after “behaving aggressively and abusively” on a flight in 2021.
Speaking to the Mirror, Mr Harris said: “My friend got an email at 6pm the night before the flight, saying they had this 10-year flight ban. I was gutted.
“I wasn’t on the booking anymore, I didn’t have a seat on the flight.
“We’ve had this previously. It’s this person who obviously has the same name and date of birth as me.”
Mr Harris told the Mirror that the problem was eventually resolved after the airline requested a picture of his passport in order to confirm his identity. However, this only left him with a few hours to get to the airport.
He added that the “incredibly stressful” experience “has made me less likely to want to fly with easyJet in the future”.
“We’d booked the holiday a month ago and we even checked in online over a week ago, so there has been so much time for them to contact us.
“I was gutted because I’d booked a day off work [for the flight] and I’ve basically not been able to work today because I’ve been spending the whole day trying to ring easyJet to get this sorted”.
An easyJet spokesperson told The Independent: “We are very sorry that Mr Harris was incorrectly advised he couldn’t fly with us. We made this decision in good faith as Mr Harris shared the same name and date of birth and was flying from the same UK region as a passenger we’d previously banned for a serious offence onboard.
“As soon as Mr Harris contacted us we resolved the matter and while he flew as originally planned we understand the frustration this will have caused so our team are in touch with him and will offer a gesture of goodwill in light of his experience”.
This is not the only complication Mr Harris has experienced due to the name share, with his mum, Sheena, telling the Mirror that “last May, in the early hours of the morning, the Met police turned up at the front door”.
“They burst into the house, burst into his bedroom and got him to come downstairs.
“Then their attitude started to shift, and it became quite obvious that they’d seen him and his physical appearance and started to back off slightly.
“I’m starting to think that we need to seek legal advice. If this incorrect information is shared by easyJet, that could cause some quite serious issues”.
