A dad-of-two has questioned the "extraordinary circumstances" that caused his family's flight home from Turkey to be delayed by 16 hours after passengers were allegedly told a "sandwich shortage" was causing disruption.
Adam Lewis, 48, and his family were due to return from a week-long all-inclusive holiday in Antalya on June 1 but found out on arriving at the airport their Jet2 flight had been delayed. Adam claimed passengers said they were told by ground staff in Turkey that catering issues had affected services leaving Birmingham Airport.
After being put up in a hotel overnight, the Lewises returned to the airport the next day for a 4pm take-off. Adam claims compensation forms were handed out to all passengers onboard but, weeks later, Jet2 refused the family's claim, citing "extraordinary circumstances" which the airline said were out of its control.
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Self-employed barber Adam said he missed out on a day's earnings as a result of the delay and labelled the airline's decision as "unfair". He told Birmingham Live : "We knew even before we left the hotel that there were some problems with Jet2 flights because I had the app but we got picked up for the airport as normal.
"When we got to the airport in Turkey, we were told by some of the ground staff that there had been a number of issues with Jet2 on the Birmingham side and one of them was that they didn't have enough sandwiches onboard. Eventually, they told us our flight wouldn't be leaving until the next day and they put us up in a hotel.
"The Jet2 staff at the airport were fantastic, I couldn't praise them enough. We got back to the airport the next day and we were all handed compensation forms on the flight and were told we would be entitled to £350 in compensation because our flight was delayed 16 hours.
"I'm self-employed and I was due in work the next day so I subsequently lost a full day's trade and possibly lost customers as a result - I had a sign up in the window saying I'd be back open that day. I know these things happen though and we were happy enough with the £350. We filled in the form and sent it off and didn't think much more about it.
"Then we had an email back saying they were very sorry for the delay but because of exceptional circumstances we wouldn't be getting a penny. The email mentioned the war in Ukraine, fuel supplies, security queues and staff shortages, but they haven't actually told us the reason that our flight was delayed."
A Jet2 spokesperson said: “Although we were well prepared for the welcome return of international travel, including the busy summer season, unfortunately a number of third parties were not well resourced. This lack of resource caused widespread disruption and delays at airports which was completely beyond our control.
"This disruption affected Mr Lewis’ flight which was unfortunately delayed. We do of course apologise to Mr Lewis for the delay and we have been in touch with him to explain our position on the matter.”
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