A grieving mum who took her sons on holiday just weeks after losing their dad had their Jet2 flight home delayed by 46 HOURS – leaving the family “traumatised”.
Kelly Orford and her two sons aged five and 10 flew out to Antalya in Turkey for a week on October 14. The trip had been paid for by Kelly’s mother following the death of her partner, Henry Nagai.
Henry, known lovingly as Henz, was found unconscious at his job as a security guard in the early hours of August 26. Paramedics fought to save the 43-year-old but tragically he was pronounced dead at the scene.
IT consultant Kelly, who lives in Stretford with children Mekhi, 10 and Kaian, five, says she was initially hesitant to take the trip due to being overcome by grief.
But thinking it may be good for the young boys to get away, the 40-year-old agreed and the family enjoyed a week in the sun.
“When the holiday came, I didn’t want to go because I’m in absolute pieces,” Kelly said. “However, the boys wanted to go and I convinced myself it would be good for me.”
But everything started to unravel when they arrived back at the airport in Antalya ready to fly home to Manchester at 11.55am on October 21.
The family were told there was hydrologic fluid leaking from the plane and new parts had to be ordered in to fix it. Because of the issue, the family were put up in a hotel 40 minutes away from the airport.
The following day, the family returned to the airport and boarded the aircraft before being told it hadn’t been fixed yet and they would need to wait another two hours.
But four hours later, the family claim they were still sat on the runway without food or water – with “people collapsing” and “children being sick”.
When they were finally let off the plane, Kelly claims they had to wait another four hours just to be told the flight had been cancelled. The family were then transferred back to the hotel for the second time.
On October 23, the flight finally left Antalya for Manchester at 10.30am - 46 hours after it was supposed to leave. Kelly says she couldn’t stop crying following the ordeal.
“It was traumatising,” she said. “I’m so sad for everyone, but mainly my babies, as this was supposed to be a reliever from the worst time in their lives.
“Since we’ve been back, if someone asks my five-year-old how his holiday was, he doesn’t talk about the fun things. He talks about the plane disaster.
"My son has health anxiety since his daddy died – putting him back on a broken plane has traumatised him. Every time we were transferred, we had to go through arrivals and then security.
"I currently have four stamps on my passport because of the amount of time we had to travel in and out. Most people’s suitcases have also been snapped or broken – mine is completely broken – so no care given to our belongings either.
“It made the worst times of our lives even worse. I’m an emotional wreck. It’s turned my plane-loving boy into a nervous wreck; I now have a battle on my hands trying to convince him to get on a plane so he can see his dad’s resting place and family in Uganda in January. We were treated like caged animals.”
A spokesperson for Jet2 told the Manchester Evening News it wanted to offer its “sincere apologies” to Kelly and her family for the unforeseen delay.
In a statement, Jet2.com said: “We would like to offer our sincere apologies to Ms Orford and her family, as well as all the other customers affected by the unforeseen delay, which was caused after the flight deck crew correctly followed standard procedure after noticing a minor fault indication.
“Although we understand the enormous inconvenience that this causes, we will never compromise on putting everyone’s comfort, safety and well-being first. We provided customers with hotel accommodation on both nights, and our teams worked tirelessly to look after everyone.
"We can confirm that a replacement aircraft flew out to Antalya on Sunday (23rd October) and customers were flown home that same evening.”
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