Ryanair ‘nightmare’ as British tourists miss holiday after being told flight was cancelled

Eamonn Holmes praises airport staff amid travel chaos

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Daniel Campbell and Victoria Timberlake were travelling to Hamburg from Stansted Airport on July 2. The couple had an early morning flight booked with Ryanair.

Daniel told Express.co.uk: “Victoria bought me the trip to Hamburg for my birthday and we were going to see one of our favourite artists at the Elbphilharmonie music hall.

“My partner is an architect and so she was also really excited to see the music hall as it’s an incredible architectural space.”

But the pair’s short weekend break in Hamburg was thrown into chaos when they were told their flight was cancelled.

Daniel said: “As soon as we got to Stansted it was complete chaos. Once we finally got to the front of the security queue, we scanned our boarding passes and our flight came up as cancelled.

“It was strange because we hadn’t received an email or anything like that as obviously we wouldn’t have travelled to the airport if that had been the case.

“We were told to go and speak to Ryanair customer service and queued for quite a while until we got to the front.”

After waiting in the queue with other passengers facing cancellations and delays, they were told by Ryanair staff that their flight had been cancelled and the next available flight was on Monday morning.

Daniel said: “As we would have missed the gig, there was no point taking the Monday flight so we then got a form to apply for a refund and compensation.

“But once we were home and Victoria went to apply for a refund, the website said it was unable to process the refund.

“We contacted customer services immediately and they told us the flight had flown at 8:20am.

“They said there was nothing on their system to say it had been cancelled. I also checked Flight Radar and it said it had flown.

“At this point I got quite irate as we had been told it was cancelled and I can’t believe that the flight actually flew.”

Daniel managed to find another passenger who had taken a photo of the incorrect information on the board to prove it had shown up as cancelled.

He told Express.co.uk: “We’ve missed out on the opportunity to see the gig at such an incredible venue.

“I think the airline thinks people won’t apply for compensation as it’s such an onerous process to try and get anything back from Ryanair.

“They try to make it as hard as possible to claim anything back. It’s such a nightmare and impossible to get through to anyone.”

A Ryanair spokesperson told Express.co.uk: “Due to an isolated messaging error regarding this flight from London Stansted to Hamburg, these passengers believed their flight was no longer operating as scheduled.

“The error was quickly resolved, however these passengers left the airport once they learned of the cancellation and were not aware that the flight had departed as scheduled until later that morning.

“A member of our Customer Service team will contact these passengers directly regarding their refund.”

It added that the team in Stansted would have received the same cancellation message as the passengers.

Ryanair has now offered Daniel and Victoria a refund and compensation of 250 euros (£211) per passenger.

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