Scottish couple faced ‘impossible’ journey after flight cancellation – ‘very stressful’
Nick Ferrari slams the running of Heathrow Airport
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Airlines have cancelled more than 100 flights in total this week, affecting the travel plans of thousands of Britons. Today, British Airways have axed 68 flights, while easyJet has axed 42.
Due to the continuous cancellations, some Britons have been put on to other flights by airlines.
But some of these journeys have proved “impossible” for some.
This is what happened to John Eggo, from Edinburgh, and his partner, whose flight was cancelled earlier this week.
The Scottish couple were meant to travel to Seville in southern Spain on Thursday, April 7, for their first holiday since the start of the pandemic.
Their flight was scheduled to leave Edinburgh to Heathrow, where they intended to board a connecting flight to Seville.
However, John received an email on Tuesday evening to inform him that the Edinburgh to Heathrow leg of the journey had been axed.
British Airways had put him and his partner on a flight from Glasgow instead.
But the new flight would give the couple just 30 minutes at Heathrow to change for their connecting flight.
For John, this seemed like an “impossible” journey as it wouldn’t allow him and his partner enough time to make the next flight.
John explained his situation, saying: “We had the car booked in and everything sorted to fly from Edinburgh to Heathrow and then from Heathrow to Seville.
“It was around 8pm on Tuesday we got an email to say it had been cancelled, so it was about 12 hours before we were able to check in.
“We knew there had been issues with cancellations, and I straight away tried to phone customer services but it was 8pm so they were closed.
“I tried replying to them through a DM on Twitter but got nowhere so I phoned back at 8am on Wednesday, and luckily got through in a couple of minutes to someone.
“We had been trying to figure out what we could do and if we could get to Glasgow, but our car was still booked in for Edinburgh, so we were even thinking about parking it there at Edinburgh airport and getting the bus through, but it would have been impossible.”
John got in touch with British Airways the following day, and the airline was able to offer the couple an earlier flight from Edinburgh to London City.
However, that would mean travelling across the capital to Heathrow, adding even more time to the couple’s journey.
John continued: “The guy explained that the rescheduling system is automated, and then they managed to get us a flight earlier from Edinburgh to London City, and then we’ll have to travel for around an hour and a half to get to Heathrow for our separate flight to Seville.”
However, John and his partner did take the new flight offer and managed to arrive at Heathrow in time for their connecting flight.
“There was a lot of added stress, especially as you need to fill in a Covid form for Spain but you need your seat number for the flight and we didn’t have one, so we were pretty stressed with that,” John explained.
“But customer services managed to get our seat numbers for us before we got to the airport.”
He added: “We’ve got there now but it’s been very stressful, it’s our first time going anywhere since the pandemic.”
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