Thousands of people have been stranded abroad after flights were cancelled, but while some wait around others are taking matters into their own hands.
Joel Pennington was due to take a three-hour flight to Manchester from Germany. Since his flight was axed, he has spent 25 hours trying to get home.
He flew from Germany to Norway and onto London, where he is waiting to get to Manchester, paying out £700 extra.
He is one of many taking drastic action to get home from their trips abroad.
Airlines have cancelled hundreds of flights over the past week due to staff shortages, with many changes made at short notice over the bank holiday weekend.
While some families never reached their destination or arrived late, others have found their return flights are not operating.
More than a hundred flights to and from the UK were cancelled on Monday, according to the data analytics firm Cirium, and dozens more were scrapped on Tuesday.
EasyJet, which is the biggest operator at London Gatwick, has been badly affected by disruption over the past week. The airline refused to say how many flights it had cancelled on Tuesday, but it is reported to be at least 35 – although that remains a small proportion of its overall schedule. Wizz Air has also been affected, while British Airways cancelled a large number of services in advance.
Joel was due to fly home with Lufthansa, which arranged his alternative route.
The 23-year-old from the Lake District said he was now resting in London at a friend’s house as he was “too exhausted” to make the final leg of his journey.
“I’ve just given up and am staying in London for the night. I can’t continue travelling right now,” he said.
Mr Pennington says the experience has affected his mental health, and the stress of the journey home has overshadowed the good time he had on holiday.
He is not the only one.
Harshal Shah is stuck in Crete after his flight to take his family and two other families home was cancelled on Monday.
Rather than wait for a later EasyJet flight, Mr Shah has spent £6,000 more to fly with Jet2 to Birmingham and then take a taxi to his home in London.
Mr Shah, who spent a week in Crete with his family and friends for their first holiday since before the coronavirus pandemic, said his return flight had been cancelled four hours before it was due to depart on Monday.
He said the next available EasyJet flight was not until Thursday, so he decided to make alternative plans.
He has chosen to fly to Birmingham and says he has got no choice but to pay for a taxi from that airport to his home in London.
Mr Shah told the BBC he had to pay out for new flights, accommodation and food for two further nights and had received “no response at all” from EasyJet.
“The communication in terms of everything is shocking,” he added. “Honestly, EasyJet, they should not be EasyJet at all – it’s not easy at all.”
Alex Settle, a police officer from Hull, and her hen party of 14 were told their flight from Portugal to Manchester had been cancelled by EasyJet when they arrived at the airport.
EasyJet re-booked them on a Wednesday flight back to UK – but the group were worried about further delays so booked a Jet2 flight for Tuesday instead.
Each of them is having to pay £366 for the new flight and an extra night’s stay.
“It’s been really stressful, with lots of tears,” said Alex. “This has really tainted the whole trip.
The group are due to arrive at Luton Airport in the early hours of Thursday, and are now having to plan how to get back to Hull.
‘Very sorry’
Airlines have been being blamed for taking more bookings than they can manage following staff cuts during the height of the pandemic when travel ground to a halt.
But industry leaders have said the government could have done more to support the sector.
The sector has also called for immigration rules on hiring overseas workers to be relaxed to plug staff shortages, but Transport Secretary Grant Shapps ruled out such a move.
Before Covid, airports and airlines across Britain employed around 140,000 people, but since then thousands of jobs have been cut, including around 30,000 for UK airlines alone.
EasyJet has not responded to repeated requests for comment from the BBC.
The airline has previously said it is “very sorry” for flights being cancelled, adding that the disruption has been caused by “the ongoing challenging operating environment”.
Source:BBC
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