A mum was left "heartbroken" after easyJet cancelled her family's flights forcing them to travel hundreds of miles only for the second replacement flight to be axed.
Sarah Thomas, 38, from Rumney in Cardiff, and her family were one of the many thousands left disappointed by the budget airline when an IT failure cancelled flights across their network.
On Thursday (May 26), Sarah's family had planned to fly out to Turkey for a holiday that had been postponed for years thanks to the Covid pandemic, reports KentLive.
They had originally been booked to fly out from Bristol Airport, but this flight never actually took off.
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Sarah said: “I am a nervous flyer anyway. They then delayed it because they said there was something wrong with the plane.
"Five minutes later they said it was cancelled. The plane was there.
"We were literally looking at it. There were other people there who were going to a wedding."
After finding out the flight had been cancelled, Sarah and her family then had to go through lengthy procedures just to leave the airport.
With two young children, Sarah said she found the ordeal stressful, like many others in her situation.
She claimed: “When they cancelled we were told we weren't allowed to leave the gate because we had to go through immigration, even though we hadn’t been anywhere.
"They said that a person from easyJet would be waiting in the baggage reclaim area to help us.
"When we got there, there was no-one around."
Sarah said that her family were on the phone for hours with easyJet awaiting news about their options.
They were eventually booked onto another flight from Gatwick the following evening, with the airline also telling her that her and her family, which included her disabled sister and two daughters, would be booked into a hotel at the airport if they could arrange their own way to the airport, which cost them £350.
Once Sarah and her relatives were in the taxi from Bristol Airport to London Gatwick, they made contact with easyJet again.
She said that the airline then told them to book it themselves and claim the money back, which cost single mum Sarah another £207.
To make matters worse for the family, their rebooked flight from Gatwick wasn’t due to leave until late on Friday evening, which meant that they had to spend over seven hours in the airport on Friday (May 27) as their hotel checkout was at 2pm.
The family, eager to get away on holiday, were willing to sit around and wait if it meant they could get on the flight.
Despite the long wait at Gatwick, the family were eventually instructed to go to the gate to board their long-awaited flight.
Sarah’s youngest daughter, who is five-years-old, was particularly excited to be going on holiday and called the hectic day “the best day of my life”.
After arriving at the gate, a similar situation happened to that at Bristol Airport, however this time the flight was outright cancelled with no explanation.
After a two-day ordeal just to try and go on holiday, Sarah said she "broke down" at this news.
She said: "My legs went beneath me. I was on the floor crying my eyes out. I couldn’t believe this was happening again. Not just one flight but two. We had travelled all the way to Gatwick.”
For the second time in 24 hours, Sarah and her family were stuck at the airport with little direction from easyJet on what to do.
The mum said: “There was no-one from easyJet. We managed to wait outside with my five-year-old for a coach.
"We got back at 5am and had to spend £120 to get back. Both kids were crying their eyes out last night. It was heartbreaking.”
While Sarah may just be one of many to face this ordeal over the last few days, the unreliability of easyJet has made Sarah never want to travel with them again.
She is seeking compensation and rebooked another flight for next Friday (June 3).
An easyJet spokeswoman said: "On Thursday, May 26, easyJet experienced some IT systems issues and while this was rectified later that afternoon, some flights across the network were unfortunately cancelled as a result, including Ms. Thomas’ flight from Bristol to Dalaman.
"We were able to reroute Ms Thomas via London Gatwick to connect to onward flights to Dalaman the following evening.
"Unfortunately, their flight from London Gatwick to Dalaman was subsequently also cancelled."
The airline easyJet announced that across the half-term, over 200 flights were scheduled to be cancelled.
This was met with outrage on Twitter as customers had to rush to find alternative flights.
The spokeswoman continued: “We provided customers with options to rebook or receive a full refund for all cancelled flights, however we nonetheless fully understand the disruption this will have caused to their plans and we are very sorry for this.
"We are reaching out to Ms Thomas to apologise for her experience, to reimburse her in full for her expenses and provide compensation in line with regulations. ”
