A man has queried the "extraordinary circumstances" that resulted in his family's flight home from Turkey being delayed by 16 hours. BirminghamLive reported that Adam Lewis, 48, and his family were returning from a week-long all-inclusive holiday in Antalya on June 1 but found out on their arrival at the airport that their Jet2 flight had been delayed as catering services had been hit while leaving Birmingham Airport.
The Lewis family were put up in a hotel overnight and when they returned to the airport the next day for a 4pm take-off, Adam says compensation forms were handed out to all passengers. However, weeks later, Jet2 refused the family's claim, citing "extraordinary circumstances".
Self-employed barber Adam, from Billesley, claimed he missed out on a day's earnings as a result of the delay, and labelled the airline's decision as "'unfair", adding: "We knew even before we left the hotel that there were some problems with Jet2 flights because I had the Birmingham Airport 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.
"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.
"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.
"There was a story on BirminghamLive that same day saying another Jet2 flight had been delayed over a lack of sandwiches and we were told the same thing at the airport, which doesn't seem like extraordinary circumstances to me."
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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