A Nottingham man has been left "trapped" in Thailand after his return ticket was cancelled two weeks before the flight. Paul Henstock, a taxi driver from Mapperley Park, was hoping to have the holiday of his dreams in Bangkok.
But his dream holiday was ruined by a message he received on Wednesday (August 31), telling him that his flight back home was cancelled. The 54 year old, said he "woke up" to the news, and has immediately called the lastminute.com agency to arrange to get on another flight.
He flew from the Gatwick Airport to Thailand on July 5, and was due to return home on September 11 on a flight provided by the Singaporean low-cost airline Scoot. He has spent £524.19 on his tickets purchased on lastminute.com.
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"I booked a ten week holiday to travel Thailand", Mr Henstock said. "I should fly home on September 11, which is just in a few days - but on Wednesday morning I woke up to a text from lastminute.com saying that my flight was cancelled."
And that is when the nightmare started, he said. "I kept buying SIM cards, it took an hour. And then it took 42 minutes to ring in Singapore, and I was basically offered the money back which was about £480 or a travel voucher and again - it would not put me on another flight. They could not do it.
"The cheapest direct flight on that date is £1285. I was angry because I can basically afford to sort it out, but there were also families on that flight.
"If you think of two parents with two children who now need to get back to work, they cannot. They have been dumped on an island."
He added: "On September 18 my visa expires so I have got to be out of Thailand. The only way I managed to do it and get it at a decent price is to fly back on the 18th, the day my visa expires.
"And I have got to fly to Finland and change it back to the UK. And it still cost me just under £800, so £480 does not even cover this flight."
He said he wanted to warn others after his experience. "I am not a millionaire but I will take the hit. But others cannot afford it.
"A family would need to pay £5000 just to get back home for work and they would get only £2000 from the airline to do it. So I am in a much more fortunate position."
He said he saved money for a long time to have his "holiday of a lifetime" in Thailand. It comes after he ended up in hospital in Manila for 14 weeks back in 2018, and that he had to teach himself to walk again.
"This was my dream to get back on a surf board which I did achieve, silver clouds at the end of a rainbow and all that. I saved my money hard and this was my big thing and they just dropped it right on me."
Nottinghamshire Live has approached lastminute.com and Scoot airline for comment.
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