A man has slammed easyJet after he was forced to cancel plans for his friend’s 50th birthday party because his flight from Manchester to Munich was cancelled. He claims the cancellation is down to the airline wanting to use the plane to meet demand for the Champions League final.
Andrew Logan, 33, booked his flights from Manchester Airport to Munich in February for Friday, May 27 with a return on the Sunday - the same weekend as Liverpool’s Champions League final against Real Madrid. However, Andrew received an email from the budget airline on Friday (May 6), informing him the flight to Munich had been cancelled.
“This first came to light on Friday afternoon via an email,” Andrew said. “They sent me a very generic email saying they had cancelled the flight and to request a refund.”
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Speaking to the ECHO, Andrew added: “We’ve had these flights booked since February. It’s for a friend’s 50th birthday, we’re all going out - you only turn 50 once so it’s a big birthday. Trying to arrange a date for a group to travel for six of you - it’s a bit of a nightmare and we’re back to square one.
“I contacted easyJet, whose explanation was a very generic comment of it's for ‘operational reasons’, so I asked them ‘is the operational reason that it’s quite simply more profitable for you to cancel the tickets for the Munich flight and use the aircraft to fly to Paris instead? The guy on the call centre said: 'I can’t confirm, it’s just operational reasons', so he was very much just towing a generic and vague line, which is what I kind of expected them to do.”
easyJet is operating additional flights from Liverpool John Lennon Airport and Manchester Airport in order to meet the increased demand of football fans travelling from the North West for the match on May 28. The airline does not usually fly between Liverpool and Paris, but it will run services from John Lennon Airport to the French capital on May 27 and May 28, while it is running more flights than usual from Manchester.
At the time of writing, an easyJet return from Liverpool John Lennon Airport to Paris departing on May 27 and returning on May 29 is being sold for £813.28. Andrew added: "It’s bad enough that they charge so much for a round trip to Paris, but to cancel flights that they’ve had in the booking system for near enough a year at such short notice so they can operate these flights is even worse."
When approached by the ECHO, an easyJet spokesperson said: “At times airlines need to make adjustments to schedules to accommodate demand and if a flight is cancelled, we try to ensure that changes are made weeks ahead of departure and that alternatives are available so customers are able to rebook.”
With his flight cancelled, Andrew has said the trip will now not go ahead. He explained: “The whole trip is off. We looked at alternative flights - there are flights with Lufthansa but there’s over £200 difference in fare from what we paid for easyJet back in February." Andrew continued: “It’s really shoddy and it looks like from the easyJet website that this Munich flight isn’t the only one that they’ve cancelled. It looks like they’ve cancelled flights from Liverpool John Lennon as well.”
The ECHO understands that easyJet made a number of cancellations across its network at that time and has had to adjust its schedule in response to a number of issues facing the aviation industry.
