A woman was unable to get back home to Belfast after her flight was cancelled last minute due to high levels of employee sickness.
Nicola Dunlop had been visiting family in Liverpool when she and husband Thomas Dunlop were due to fly back home to Northern Ireland on Sunday. With their flight booked for 11am on April 3, the couple were due to arrive at Liverpool Airport and fly with EasyJet, which they have done multiple times before.
However, Nicola said she received an email from EasyJet in the "middle of the night" to say her flight had been cancelled. Despite sharing links to find an alternative solution, Nicola said these were "all down" and there were no alternative flights available that day online.
READ MORE : EasyJet cancels 10 flights from Liverpool airport
She told the ECHO: "There were no flights available from Manchester or Liverpool and we had to get home. We ended up booking a flight with Ryanair to Dublin and a coach to Belfast, but when we got to the airport we weren't allowed on the flight because we didn't have our passports. EasyJet lets you use your driving licence but we weren't able to with Ryanair.
"So we'd paid the taxi fair to the airport and were unable to fly. There were no other flights available so we had no means of getting anywhere else. We couldn't travel home, we had a daughter to get back to."
Nicola said the pair had to book onto the ferry from Birkenhead which "takes another day away" as they were due back at work on Monday, April 4. She added: "We've lost over £700 and we don't know if we will get that back.
"It was a shock and a lot of panic. We had no means of communicating with anyone, we couldn't get in touch with EasyJet on the phone or online because everything was down. We just felt abandoned.
"We still don't know if we will get a full refund because we've been unable to apply. The terms and conditions say you will only get compensation of £220 if your distance is less than 1,500km but we can't get through to anyone. It's had a huge knock-on effect."
A spokesperson for EasyJet said: "We are sorry to hear that Ms Dunlop's flight was cancelled as a result of the current high rates of covid infections across Europe, like all businesses, easyJet is experiencing higher than usual levels of employee sickness. As with all customers, Ms Dunlop was notified in advance of travel of her flight cancellation which ensured she was able to easily transfer onto alternative flights ahead of her trip.
"We have been in touch with Ms Dunlop to apologise for any inconvenience caused as a result of the cancellation and to refund her for the cost of the new flights and any reasonable expenses incurred."
More than 200 flights were cancelled by easyJet over the weekend, with dozens more grounded on Monday across the country. EasyJet confirmed today that 10 of those flights were set to jet off from Liverpool airport but were grounded after high levels of employee sickness.
An EasyJet spokesperson told the ECHO : "Ten flights from Liverpool were cancelled as a result of higher than usual levels of employee covid sickness. Customers have been contacted and provided with their options which include rebooking onto an alternative flight or receiving a voucher or full refund."
The cancellations came after travel chaos hit some of Britain's biggest airports at the weekend, with passengers at Heathrow and Manchester airports stuck in long queues waiting to check in. However, EasyJet confirmed that no flights to or from Liverpool today have currently been cancelled.
