Two teachers and their children are among the Brits stuck abroad and missing school today due to flight cancellations.
Naomi Thomas, 33, and Danny Massey, 39, had been on their first holiday in five years last week only for it to end with them stuck in Paris the day after their easyJet flight home from Faro was due to depart.
The teachers and their two teenage children - one of whom is missing a big school trip today - were bumped off a plane back to Liverpool Airport on Sunday, which flew under a different flight number to the same airport half an hour later.
The family, from Crewe, Cheshire, forked out hundreds in a bid to get home in time for school, only to end up stuck in the French capital when their hastily booked Eurostar was cancelled due to an electrical fault.
They are among a huge number of Brits stuck abroad following the end of half-term, leaving them to explain the situation to frustrated bosses and teachers trying to keep work places and classrooms running smoothly.
While different councils have different rules - and headteachers may well be understanding - parents can be slapped with a £60 fine each for non-sickness related absences, such as being on holiday during term-time.
Employees are also at the whims of their bosses, who may insist extra annual leave is used up to cover the unplanned time off.
"I am a teacher, my partner works in a secondary school, and my step daughter was due to leave our home for a school trip to Normandy, France at 1am on Monday," Naomi told The Mirror.
"It was imperative we got back quickly. The treatment from easyJet has been non existent.
"No refreshments. No offers of accommodation. Just a printed leaflet of the emails they sent at midnight, while the instructions to manage your booking on the app still are not working almost 27 hours later.
"As for any phone numbers - these don’t exist during the middle of the night when you’re alone in a cold airport.
"I will certainly be refraining from using easyJet in the future and will probably stick to caravan holidays in the UK."
The family's trip back home began at 8pm on Saturday when they arrived at Faro Airport in Portugal, three and a half hours ahead of their flight.
They checked in and entered the departure lounge, where it was "clear that the airport was in chaos with no available seating, food and drink vendors closing and unable to take any more orders, and passengers strewn around the gates in varying positions".
After withstanding the mayhem for a couple of hours, they went through their boarding gate and walked into the tunnel, standing metres away from the plane's open door.
"Here, two very overwhelmed employees attempted to apologise and explained that a crew member had been taken ill and they were awaiting a paramedic," Naomi said.
"Heart attacks were mentioned, as was the possibility of downgrading staff and the number of passengers, but nothing concrete.
"After 15 minutes or so, the same employee from the boarding gate announced our flight was cancelled, and that we should follow him to retrieve our bags, and check the app for the reason why -26 hours later we still have no reason why."
Have you been stranded abroad due to the travel chaos? Email us at webtravel@reachplc.com.
Naomi kept checking her app only to be told their flight was not suffering from disruption, leaving the family to tuck into vending machine food and sleep in the airport until 6am - when a hastily booked flight to Paris was due to leave.
"Our decision was made good by the easyJet employee arriving on shift at 4am announcing that there would be no available flights to the UK before Wednesday," Naomi said.
"Luckily we were able to book Eurostar train tickets, and a connecting train to our home town from London St Pancras. We also arranged for family to collect our car that was parked at Liverpool airport."
The family got to Paris and jumped in a taxi to Gare du Nord a few hours early, only to be told that their train was cancelled and they should rebook.
The next available service was on Tuesday.
"After some tears, emotional phone calls and disbelief that we were in the same position we started in, but in a different country, we finally admitted defeat and retreated here, to this apartment so that we could rest and work out what to do," the mum continued.
"There are no direct flights from Paris to the UK today or tomorrow. No trains. We can’t get the ferry as they no longer accept foot passengers.
"We can’t find a car hire company that will allow us to hire in France and return in England, that’s assuming they’d accept a photograph of the driving licenses we left at home in the UK.
"We’ve rung the schools we work in to say we won’t be there tomorrow. We’ve broken our daughter's heart by telling her she won’t make her school trip that she’d so been looking forward to.
"I tried to book the earliest direct flight to Manchester I could on Tuesday AM, but as I got to the payment page, the flights were gone."
Now the family are stuck in Paris until Tuesday evening, when they hope a Eurostar train they're booked onto will actually take them home.
They are far from the only ones who have been inconvenienced by airline disruption over the past week.
Belinda Ungan's daughter will miss two days of school thanks to a cancelled flight.
"easyJet cancelled my 12 year old daughter’s flight on Saturday from Basel to Gatwick, at the end of her Guides' trip," she said.
"She’s not flying back until tomorrow, after three days of delay. I’ve informed her school but haven’t heard anything.
"I don’t anticipate it will be a problem though. There’s nothing we can do."
EasyJet and Eurostar have been contacted for comment.
