A disabled woman had to sleep on an airport floor with no pain medication when she was one of 15,000 customers caught up in mass cancellations by budget airline easyJet. easyJet axed 54 flights from London Gatwick Airport on Sunday following thunderstorms in the area, while another 55 were grounded on Monday.
Mum of three Lisa - who is registered disabled - claims she was given little in the way of help at Chania International Airport, Greece. She said she had to sleep on the stone floor of the airport with her friend for two nights.
Lisa has fibromyalgia along with other health conditions, and says she suffered panic attacks in the terminal as she was not even given food and water by the airline, reports The Mirror.
After waiting in queues to speak to staff until 3am alongside other stranded customers following cancellation of her flight on Sunday, she was reportedly told she could be offered "one night only" in a hotel room.
But this would cost 40 euros each way in a taxi to and from the airport out of her own pocket, and she would have to check out at 10am, which would only be five hours after she arrived there.
When she decided to stay at the airport, easyJet staff told her to use the app to book onto a replacement flight. But the quick dash for new seats from fellow travellers meant these quickly sold out and she was now looking at days, not hours before she got home.
When she decided to take a refund instead, easyJet staff then allegedly refused to help her get back home via Athens on Monday morning - leading her to splash out £316 on replacement flights with TUI the following day, and giving her another night on the floor.
She said: "She said easyJet would cover us flying back from Athens at 12 o'clock on Monday afternoon - but then she asked 'have you applied for a refund?
"I said 'yeah', and she said 'well I can't transfer you then'."
"I'm disabled and I've been left sleeping on airport floor for two nights. We ended up taking all our underwear and everything out of our bags to lay on just to make it comfortable, but it wasn't."
Lisa had been due to return back to Gatwick late on June 11, but the cancellations meant she only got home on Tuesday night.
An easyJet spokesperson said: “We are sorry that due to thunderstorms in the Gatwick area we were unable to operate Lisa’s flight from Chania on Sunday night.
“We did all possible to minimise the impact of the weather disruption for customers and provided options to rebook an alternative flight including with other carriers for free or receive a refund and also advise customers who book their own alternative transport that they will be reimbursed, including any fare difference if they choose a refund for their cancelled flight.
“We also offered a hotel room although we understand this wasn’t taken up and so we have spoken with Lisa to apologise for her experience which we are looking into with our ground handling partner at Chania airport to understand more about this and have reimbursed for the expenses she incurred and the fare difference between her refunded flight and her new flight.
“The safety and wellbeing of customers and crew is easyJet’s highest priority and while this is outside of our control, we would like to apologise to customers for the inconvenience caused.”
