My journey from hell – Malta to Barcelona to Dublin and finally to London: When TOM RAWSTORNE went on holiday with his family, he wasn’t expecting the airports chaos to land him with a nightmare £2,000 30-hour trip back home

Stirring from a deep sleep on Monday morning, I reached for my iPhone to check the time. I had spent the half term week in Malta with my wife and two of our daughters and was conscious that a taxi was coming to take us to the airport to return home.

It was 5am but any thoughts of extra shut-eye went out of the window the minute I caught sight of an email from easyJet.

The message had been sent at 3.12am – approximately eight hours before we were due to fly to Gatwick.

‘We’re really sorry that your easyJet flight 8824 from MLA to LGW on 06-06-2022 has been cancelled,’ it began. ‘We’d like to apologise for any inconvenience this may cause you.’

Inconvenience? The flight home should have taken three and a half hours. Instead, we had to take three flights, via two different countries, and were in transit for more than 30 hours at an additional cost of about £2,000.

We finally arrived home at 7pm on Tuesday – accompanied by only one of our two checked-in suitcases. 

Where the other one is, God only knows. It got lost somewhere en route between Barcelona, Dublin and London. As a result, I am currently wearing what can only be described as a ‘third division’ pair of underpants.

Tom Rawstorne with wife Charlotte on holiday, before he received a message from easyJet that his flight home had been cancelled

People in the check-in area at Bristol Airport on Wednesday amid chaos at airports across the UK

In the end, I booked a flight to Barcelona, assuming that, as an international hub, there would be plenty of options to return to the UK. Again, there were none

Another couple who should have been on the same flight as us headed back via Frankfurt. Another via Paris. Both with overnight stays included. 

Similar stories have emerged from holiday destinations across Europe, with people even hiring cars to get home or to reach other airports.

Yet more still have found themselves stranded on holiday, no doubt suckered into believing that easyJet would look after them.

According to their initial email, we had the option of switching to another of their flights ‘for free’.

Except that the first one that came up with sufficient availability for our family would not have left until this coming Saturday.

Forget the fact that would have involved a whole week absent from work and school, who in their right mind would put their trust in easyJet a second time?

And it is that breakdown in trust which British holidaymakers need to get their heads around ahead of the summer holidays.

Because instead of fulfilling their basic function – to get you from A to B and back again – airlines like easyJet are simply abandoning their customers. 

 In the post-Covid rush to get abroad, airlines are operating at or near capacity. They won’t lay on another flight later in the day for you. And their rivals will either be full or, if there are spaces, screw you for every pound they can get.

As for customer care, forget it. Modern budget airlines are little more than websites with planes, programmed to extract the maximum cash possible for your flights, your baggage and your on-board snacks. 

Scores of passengers crowd a baggage claim hall at Gatwick Airport amid huge delays and flight cancellations

Queues to enter security at Gatwick Airport on Tuesday as passengers across the UK face travel mayhem

But, when something goes wrong, it’s left to you to sort out the mess.

At dawn on Monday I couldn’t even find a phone number to call a human being. 

When I tried later, the calls would not connect. Instead, at 6.46am, I contacted their support team via Twitter.

A response came through 12 minutes later: ‘Hi Tom. I would like to take a look into this for you.’ Bizarrely, this sentence was followed by a magnifying glass emoji. 

‘It was signed by someone called Ryan, his name followed by another emoji, this time of a plane. I hate emojis at the best of times. This was not the best of times.

Ryan The Detective never got back to me. Instead, after sending numerous unanswered messages, it wasn’t until 5.11pm that I got another reply: ‘Hi Tom. We are disheartened with the current situation…’ 

Another emoji, this time of a broken heart. A fourth, of a unicorn, ended the message.

In the absence of any guidance, my first move had been to try to book tickets with the other carriers leaving that day. 

Everyone else was clearly doing the same. The algorithms did what algorithms do – the prices rising up like a fruit machine, from £200 to £600 a seat. By the time I clicked on the ‘pay’ button, the flights had gone.

In the end, I booked a flight to Barcelona, assuming that, as an international hub, there would be plenty of options to return to the UK. Again, there were none. So we booked a night in a hotel.

The only flights we could find the following day were with Aer Lingus, travelling first to Dublin and then to Gatwick. The total cost to me, put on a credit card, will be at least £2,000.

I fully appreciate that not everyone will have the ability to shell out that amount of money. Particularly when there is no guarantee as to how much – if any – of the additional outlay the airline will pay back. 

The initial email included links to how I could apply for compensation for the cancelled flight and claim for expenses. But there are caveats galore about only booking hotels if easyJet is unable to do so.

As for the compensation claim – which can pay out up to £350 a passenger – the reply states that their ‘specialist assessment and legal team’ will investigate and get back to me within 28 days.

Last night a spokesman for the company apologised for the flight’s cancellation and said it would pay compensation and cover any additional costs incurred.

‘While we provide customers with accommodation and meals as well as rebooking options including flying with alternative carriers, we know options are limited on some routes at this time,’ the spokesman said.

‘We fully understand the difficulty this will have caused the family and we are very sorry.’

As for the lost bag, when I reported it to an Aer Lingus member of staff, he suggested I might like to return to Gatwick to see if it could be found.

No thanks. I’m done with airports. At least until a family trip to Greece in the summer. Whether I get there and back – with all my underwear – is anyone’s guess. 

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