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Edinburgh bride devastated after flights to dream wedding cancelled because party ‘was about to go away’

Edinburgh bride devastated after flights to dream wedding cancelled because party ‘was about to go away’

An Edinburgh bride has hit out at easyJet after her dream holiday flight was cancelled because her wedding guests were “about to leave”.

Sarah Machete said they were told the plane would not be taking off for Naples, and were “only given the option to fly in two days”. The budget airline cancelled several flights from Edinburgh and Glasgow on Thursday, with “little notice” to passengers.

A second passenger from Edinburgh, Ian, who was booked on the same flight, said he had lost two days of holiday. EasyJet told the Daily Record the cancellations were due to a problem with air traffic control.

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Posting on X/Twitter, Sarah said: “I was about to leave for our flight to Naples for our wedding. Then I got a message saying our flight had been cancelled.

“The only option I was given is Saturday, in two days.”

Ian added: “EasyJet cancelled our flight from Edinburgh to Naples and rebooked our flight, which meant we lost almost two days of holiday.

“Why don’t we book a flight with another airline to get to Naples today?”

Guy Houston was due to fly to Tunisia with his wife and daughter to start their summer holiday. The family had shelled out for a package holiday but their flight was cancelled 65 minutes before take-off at Glasgow Airport.

They were advised to return home and await further instructions.

Guy, from Falkirk, told the Record: “We arrived at Glasgow Airport at 5am and there were passengers standing around. Airport staff were telling us to check the easyJet app and no one was speaking to us.

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“There were no easyJet staff there to help. When we got home I got an email saying they couldn’t provide another flight for the next two days so the whole holiday was cancelled.

“It’s the first day of the summer school holidays and this is what families are facing. It’s awful. I feel like they’ve just washed their hands of us.”

Guy claimed an easyJet call centre customer service employee told him his flight had been cancelled due to storms affecting flights from the UK and that it was out of their control.

He added: “The airline said we would get a refund but there was no mention of compensation. We booked this holiday months ago and got a good price.

“I’m thousands of pounds out of pocket, it’s going to be hard to book anything else. I’m desperately trying to sort something else out for us but we only have a certain amount of time off work. I’m not going to rebook with them.”

A third flight from Crete to Edinburgh, which was due to depart at 11.35pm on Wednesday 26 June, was also cancelled due to a “technical issue” with the aircraft, which the airline has cited as a fault.

Several flights from Edinburgh to London and Glasgow to Malaga were also affected.

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The airline also made a number of early morning flight cancellations at other UK airports as passengers took to social media to claim they were stranded in Turkey and Greece without accommodation.

A mother in the early hours of the morning said passengers in Dalaman were left stranded and left at the airport for three hours with no help or offer of accommodation. A man also reported the same problem for a flight to London that had been cancelled.

Andrew Parker said his elderly parents were left stranded in Malaga after a flight to Liverpool was cancelled and his team were ready to help anyone.

Mark Kent posted on X “Supposed to return to AMS from EDI last night. Was notified that I arrived at EDI and it was cancelled. No one at the counter, just a note to go to the delivery area. Your staff there were uninformed, lazy, telling us to sort it out through the app. Abysmal.”

EasyJet said on its website that the cancellations were due to a problem with air traffic control.

A spokesperson said: “We are very sorry that due to the impact of air traffic control restrictions caused by the adverse weather yesterday, which meant this flight was unable to operate and no suitable alternative flights were available, we had to cancel this customer’s holiday at short notice. We have contacted our customer to apologise and confirm that we have processed a full refund.”