A disabled woman has vowed she will 'never fly with easyJet again' after she was forced to sleep on a hard airport floor with no pain medication.
Lisa was returning from a friend's wedding in Crete this week when she became one of 15,000 customers affected by mass cancellations by the budget airline.
easyJet axed 54 flights scheduled from London Gatwick Airport on Sunday following thunderstorms in the area, while another 55 were grounded on Monday.
Though the company said they were "doing all possible to minimise the impact on our customers" and offering alternative accommodation, Lisa - who is registered disabled - claims she was given little in the way of help at Chania International Airport.
Instead, the mother-of-three says she was left to try and find rest on the stone floor of the airport with her friend for two whole nights, all while her children back at home were left "petrified" and missing their mum.
Lisa has fibromyalgia along with several other health conditions that affect her physical wellbeing, and says she had to endure the entire experience without any pain medication - causing her to suffer panic attacks on the terminal as she suffered without any compensatory food or water.
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.
The experience has left her determined to never fly with easyJet again, and she added: "Never in a million years."
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.”
