A STRANDED holidaymaker has told GB News that he will not be able to fly back home until next week due to the chaos caused by the failure of the UK’s air traffic control system.
Richard Clowes, who is in Madeira to celebrate his 30th wedding anniversary, is one of some 200,000 people who have had their travel plans disrupted.
He told GB News: “There’s no information forthcoming. It even looks as though EasyJet have blocked all text messages, emails going through to them because we can’t, I can’t even send a message through at this moment in time.
“It was 40 minutes [on the phone] yesterday afternoon, yesterday evening, and a 20-minute call this morning and nobody answered.
“Now we were fortunate last night, we could stay in the hotel that we’d originally booked but obviously we’ve woken this morning and we’ve had to book a new hotel, not too far away but obviously, it’s just the upset of repacking and going to somewhere else. It’s not a great situation.”
In a discussion with Mark Longhurst and Pip Thomson, Richard he continued: “It’s extremely frustrating when the airline is not giving you any kind of information regarding where you’re going to be sleeping.
“They just cancelled the flight and gave us a new flight for 4 September, when we should have been leaving on 28 August.
“It’s a massive problem for myself. I’m a self-employed joiner. I should have been on sites this morning.
“So I’ve got problems where I’m now not going to be earning for the next week. All sorts, I’ve got family at home and we just need to get back to be honest.”
He added: “Supposedly, they’ve got to pay the cost for the hotel but obviously we’ve got to sort that out now when we get back, as they are just not contacting us whatsoever.”
EasyJet has said that it is doing all it can to minimise disruption and that ensuring the well-being of staff and customers is its highest priority.
